Isaiah 57

The malice and wickedness of them that remain behind in the world deserveth that those should quickly be taken away, who by their life might much help us: and for as much as the world draweth towards an end, God's chosen servants are taken out of it, that they fall not into more wicked times: and therefore from hence it cometh that the prophet saith: "The just man doth perish, and there is none that doth ponder it in his heart: and men of mercy are gathered together, because there is none that hath understanding." And yet do I not think that all God's elect servants are so taken out of the world, that none but the wicked remain behind: for sinners would never be converted to the sorrow of true penance, if they had not the examples of some good people to provoke them forward.

The righteous man has perished, and there is none who reflects on it in his heart: and men of mercy are gathered, for there is none who understands: for the righteous man has been gathered away from the face of malice. Let peace come: let him rest in his bed, who walks in his uprightness. LXX: See how the righteous man has perished, and no one takes it to heart: and righteous men are taken away, and no one considers. For the righteous man has been taken away from the face of iniquity: his burial shall be in peace: it has been taken away from the midst. Because of the blind watchmen and the dumb dogs, who are themselves the shepherds, not knowing understanding, who are not sated with present pleasures but are always preparing themselves for future ones, the righteous man has perished, of whom Pilate's wife says: Have nothing to do with that righteous man (Matt 27:19). And Pilate, having washed his hands: I am innocent, he says, of the blood of this righteous man. Herein it is to be considered that the word of perdition, about which the heretics often raise a cavil, that it signifies destruction and abolition forever, is applied to Christ, whose perdition certainly shows the greatness of the persecution, and not an end of substance. And there is no one, he says, who reflects on it in his heart, or lays it up. For it could not be that the blind and dumb, seeing vain things and loving dreams, and ignorant of understanding and wisdom, should think of the things that are God's. And what follows, And men of mercy, or righteous men, are gathered and taken away, signifies the Apostles, who are slain by the ungodly and gathered by the Lord. And he gives the reasons why the righteous man was slain and taken away, saying: For the righteous man has been gathered away from the face of malice, so that he might not see the evils of the world; or, because of the malice of men, whose sins He Himself bore, He ascended as victor to the Father.

The Jews think that both this and the rest that follow are to be understood either generally of all the righteous, whose blood Manasseh shed, and filled Jerusalem from gate to gate; or else that Isaiah prophesies of his own death, because he was to be sawn by Manasseh with a wooden saw, which is a most certain tradition among them. Hence most of our own writers also refer what is set down in the Epistle to the Hebrews concerning the passion of the Saints, They were sawn asunder (Heb 11:37), to the passion of Isaiah.

He foretells here the cross of the Master; for he calls the Master Christ "righteous," he who committed no sin and in whose mouth no deceit was found.… "His grave shall be in peace." For the righteous has been removed out of the way of injustice. He says this about Christ our Master and simultaneously lets us see the injustice of the murder and the victory that followed the death. For the death effected for us the reconciliation with God. He himself left his grave to ascend to the heavens.

The just perishes. Here he shows the difference between those who obey divine counsels and those who do not obey, as to deliverance from dangers.

And first, he assigns the difference,

second, he sets out the confirmation of each part: but he that puts his trust in me (Isa 57:13).

Concerning the first, he does two things:

first, he promises rest from dangers to the just;

second, he takes away from the impious hope of deliverance: but draw near hither (Isa 57:3).

Concerning the first, he does two things.

First, he sets out the tribulation of the just, because they are killed without any reckoning: men of mercy are taken away, from the present life and from their land they are taken captive as if they were not just, from before the face of evil, that is, from the presence of the wicked: why look you upon the scorners, and hold your peace when the wicked devours the man that is more just than himself? (Hab 1:13); or, from before the face of evil, that is, lest they be changed to evil: he was taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding (Wis 4:11).

Note on the words, the just perishes, and no man lays it to heart (Isa 57:1), that in the passion of Christ, man ought to lay to heart

first, love, so as to love him in return: put me as a seal upon your heart (Song 8:6);

second, bitterness, so as to sympathize with him: remember my poverty, and transgression, the wormwood and the gall (Lam 3:19);

third, fortitude, so as to suffer bravely: for think diligently upon him that endured for you such opposition from sinners against himself that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds (Heb 12:3);

fourth, its benefit, so as to give thanks: I will go up into the palm tree, and will take hold of the fruit thereof (Song 7:8).

And as for what is said according to the Hebrew, Let peace come, let him rest in his bed: let him walk in his uprightness, the sense indeed is clear, but the sequence of the words, which stands in the idiom of its own language, seems disordered in ours. And what he says is this: Let the peace of the Righteous One come, which, ascending to the Father, He left to the Apostles, saying: My peace I give to you, my peace I leave to you (John 14:27). And when the peace of Christ, which surpasses all understanding, has come, His Apostles will rest in their beds, and their death will rest. By this he shows that the martyrs do not perish but conquer, and rest in an eternal seat. But He Himself whose peace it is, and whose Apostles rest in their beds, walks in His uprightness, ascending as victor to the Father by a straight road. Further, what is read in the Seventy, The righteous man has been taken away from the face of malice, his burial shall be in peace, it has been taken away from the midst, is all referred to Christ, without mingling in the person of the Apostles: His burial is in peace, and has been taken away from the midst. For His flesh did not see corruption, nor did He remain in the sepulcher, He who is free among the dead, as the Angel says to the women: Jesus whom you seek is not here: Come and see the place where the Lord was laid (Matt 28:5, 6).

Second, he promises them rest: let peace come, let him rest in his bed, that is, he will be secure in his own home, or in the repose of his own heart: you shall know that your tabernacle is in peace (Job 5:24).

But draw near hither, you sons of the sorceress, seed of the adulterer and of the harlot. Against whom have you made sport? Against whom have you opened wide the mouth and thrust out the tongue? LXX: But draw near hither, you lawless sons, seed of adulterers and of a harlot. In what have you made sport? Against whom have you opened your mouth, and against whom have you thrust out your tongue? The righteous man having been taken away, whose burial is in peace, or rather having been taken out of the midst, you who are sons of iniquity, draw near to me and hear what I shall say (John 8). For just as he who commits iniquity is a slave of iniquity, so he who, like Judas the traitor, is a son of perdition, can be called a son of iniquity. Indeed it is written of the Lord the Savior: And the son of iniquity shall not proceed to afflict him (Ps 88 [89]:23). For of iniquity, or of the lawless, which the Seventy translated, Theodotion set down the Hebrew word itself, ONENA (עננה), which we, following Symmachus, have rendered of the sorceress, because, that is, Jerusalem, who is the mother of those who hear, was always given over to idolatry. Therefore he calls them the seed of the adulterer, or of adulterers (of whom it is said: And they committed adultery with wood and stone [Jer 3:9]), and of a harlot; and without doubt he means the same woman of whom we read above: How has the faithful city Zion become a harlot? (Isa 1:21).

But draw near hither. Here he takes away from the unjust hope of deliverance.

And first, he alleges their sin;

second, he takes away their confidence of deliverance: I will declare your justice (Isa 57:12).

Concerning the first, he does two things:

first, he alleges the perversity of their sin,

second, their obstinacy in sin: you have labored in the multitude of your ways (Isa 57:10).

Concerning the first, he does two things.

First, he accuses them of blasphemy, setting out the custom of sin, inasmuch as they imitate their fathers in this: you sons of the sorceress, who tended to auguries against my commandment, the seed of the adulterer, inasmuch as they abandoned me and adhered to idols: judge your mother, judge her (Hos 2:2).

Against whom, he says, have you made sport, spitting in his face and plucking his beard; and against whom have you opened wide and opened your mouth, and thrust out your tongue, saying to him: You are a Samaritan and have a demon (John 8:48)? And again: This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the prince of demons (Matt 12:24). And afterward, at the passion: Crucify, crucify such a one (Luke 23:21). And again: His blood be on us and on our children (Matt 27:25). And elsewhere: Ah, you who destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it! He saved others; himself he cannot save. Let him come down now from the cross, and we believe him (ibid. 40).

Are you not wicked sons, a lying seed, you who take comfort in gods under every leafy tree, sacrificing little children in the torrents under the overhanging rocks? LXX: Are you not sons of perdition, a lawless seed, you who call upon idols under leafy trees, sacrificing your sons in the valleys in the midst of the rock? You, he says, have done these things which the preceding discourse has related. You who are wicked sons, or sons of perdition, such as was Judas the traitor, who was called the son of perdition (John 17); and a lawless seed, or a lying seed and a seed of falsehood, who delight in gods under every leafy tree, and sacrifice your sons in the torrents (Acts 8). Of this the history of Kings and of Chronicles also tells, that they sacrificed their sons to gods and consecrated them in the fire (2 Kgs 16 and 17). That Ahab king of Israel and Manasseh king of Judah did this is not in doubt; they went on from the murder of their children to the blood of the Prophets. Of this also it says in Hosea: Sacrifice men, he says, for the calves have failed (Hos 13:2); or, as it is written in the Hebrew: Sacrificing men, you adore calves. And in the psalms it is written more fully: They were mingled among the nations and learned their works, and served their graven images, and it became a stumbling block to them. And they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons, and they shed innocent blood, or harmless: the blood of their sons and of their daughters, and they sacrificed to the graven images of Canaan. And the land was stained with bloods, and was polluted in their works (Ps 105 [106]:35ff.). Since, then, the history is plain, that the slayers of Christ are the sons of those who did these things, a question arises against those who will have it that there are different natures, one lost and evil, which cannot be saved, and another good, which cannot perish: how are sons called sons of perdition? For if, as they think, the sons of perdition are of a most evil nature, how was that found which had first been lost? Indeed in the parables of the penitent, both the sheep lost out of a hundred sheep and the drachma that had perished out of ten are recovered, and the lost son is found, of whom the father had said to the elder son: This your brother had perished, and is found; he was dead, and has come to life again (Luke 15:32). For nothing ever perishes unless it was first safe, and nothing ever dies unless it had lived before. Therefore these who are now called sons of perdition, or of iniquity and wickedness, forsook the Lord by their own fault, and from sons of the Lord began to be sons of perdition, as this same Prophet says to them: You have forsaken the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger (Isa 1:4). We can also take these things, according to tropology, of the heretics, who are sons of perdition and a most evil seed, or a seed of falsehood. For they are liars from the beginning, like the devil, who is its father, who is the father of every lie. These call those whom they have deceived to idols, or to the images of their dogmas, under leafy and shady trees, promising them pleasures and delights, or concealing their impurities. Hence Adam too, after he had sinned, hid himself in paradise under a tree, so as not to be open to the sight of God (Gen 3). Nor is there any doubt that sons of perdition of this kind, and a lawless seed, have very many sons, whomever they have deceived, and that they slay them in deep valleys and in the abyss of impiety under overhanging rocks, which always threaten to fall; and these, because of the diversity of falsehood and the variety of perverse dogmas, are called rocks in the plural. But we have one rock, which always follows the people of God, from which the people of Israel once drank, when it enjoyed the familiar friendship of the Lord.

First, he accuses them of blasphemy, setting out the custom of sin, inasmuch as they imitate their fathers in this: you sons of the sorceress, who tended to auguries against my commandment, the seed of the adulterer, inasmuch as they abandoned me and adhered to idols: judge your mother, judge her (Hos 2:2). He also sets out the species of sin: upon whom have you jested? As if to say: upon God, blaspheming him, above: whom have you reproached? (Isa 37:23).

Second, he accuses them of idolatry.

And first, he sets out the custom: are not you wicked children, above: woe to the sinful nation, a wicked people, ungracious children (Isa 1:4); second, he sets out the species of sin: who seek your comfort in idols.

This shows them to be those who detest God, having a sick hatred for him and ready to eat blood. There was nothing new in this; it was a long established custom. For you are the ones who have from long ago called on idols under a leafy tree.… Your guilt is that you first think to kill your firstborn and then offer libations to impure demons and soulless idols; so slaying will also be your portion and your lot.… Should I not be angry with these people? Is there not a good cause for my anger?

Second, he accuses them of idolatry. And first, he sets out the custom: are not you wicked children, above: woe to the sinful nation, a wicked people, ungracious children (Isa 1:4); second, he sets out the species of sin: who seek your comfort in idols.

And he adds to the weight of their sin of idolatry from three things:

first, from the variety of places;

second, from the violation of the divine covenant: you have discovered yourself near me (Isa 57:8);

third, from their eagerness for sinning: you have loved their bed (Isa 57:8).

Now the variety of places in which they sacrificed is shown in three ways:

first, as to pleasant places;

second, as to lofty places: upon a high and lofty mountain (Isa 57:7);

third, as to familiar places: and behind the door (Isa 57:8).

Concerning the first, he does four things.

First, he describes the pleasantness of the places, either from the shade of trees, who seek your comfort in idols under every green tree: for on every high hill, and under every green tree you didst prostitute yourself (Jer 2:20); or from the abundance of waters: sacrificing children in the torrents, that is, sacrificing your own children: you have taken your sons, and your daughters, whom you have borne to me: and have sacrificed the same to them to be devoured (Ezek 16:20); they shed innocent blood (Ps 105[106]:38).

In the parts of the torrent is your portion; this is your lot, and to them you have poured out a libation, you have offered a sacrifice. Shall I not be angry over these things? LXX: This is your portion, this is your lot; and to them you have poured out libations, and to these you have prepared victims. Shall I not then be angry over these things? The things said fit the times of Isaiah. For all the mountains, valleys and torrents were full of the worship of demons, of which Jeremiah speaks: that the fathers and sons gather wood and kindle the fire, to make chavonas for the host of heaven, while the women knead and mix fat with fine flour, in order to provoke the Lord to anger (Jer 7). And no one doubts that he means cakes, or little pastries prepared by the hand of an artisan; for that is what chavonas means in our tongue. Of these Moses, speaking in the person of the Lord with a prophetic spirit, sang beforehand in the Canticle of Deuteronomy: They provoked me with strange gods, and with their abominations they stirred me to anger; they sacrificed to demons and not to God (Deut 32:16, 17); and this they did by their own will, because it lies in our choice to choose good or evil. Thus to those who have offered themselves to God by virtues it is said: He chose for us his inheritance, the beauty of Jacob, which he loved (Ps 46 [47]:5). And in another place: The Lord's portion was made his people Jacob, Israel the cord of his inheritance (Deut 32:9). And in the Acts of the Apostles it is related that very many gave themselves to the portion and lot of Paul and Silas. Those, then, who have been the portion and lot of the Lord, like the Levites, will have the Lord as their portion and will be able to say with David: The Lord is my portion (Ps 72 [73]:26). These things we can also take of the person of the heretics. For they, having abandoned the worship of God, venerate the images of their errors, and offer victims to them and pour out libations, doing in secret things that it is shameful even to speak of, and leading captive silly women laden with sins, who are led away by various desires, always learning and never arriving at the knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 3). Since, then, the impious do these things in both kinds of impiety, is it not just that the anger of God should be provoked against them?

Second, their love of sin: in the parts of the torrent is your portion, as if to say: you have reckoned this to be your lot: let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us every where leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this our lot (Wis 2:9).

Third, their offering of sacrifice: and you have poured out libations, as to moist things, you have offered sacrifice, as to dry things, above: you shall be confounded for [your] idols (Isa 1:29).

Fourth, the just anger of God: shall I not be angry at these things? Shall I not visit for these things, says the Lord? (Jer 5:9).

Upon a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed, and there you went up to sacrifice victims. And behind the door and back of the post you have set your memorial. LXX likewise. That Israel sacrificed victims to the gods of the nations on high mountains and hills, and like a most shameless harlot spread her feet for all the demons, sacred history relates; and there was no place that was not defiled by the filth of idolatry, so much so that they set idols behind the doors of their houses, which they call the household Lares, and poured out the blood of their souls in public as much as in private. With this error and most evil custom of antiquity the cities of many provinces are afflicted; and Rome herself, the mistress of the world, venerates with wax tapers and lamps, in every tenement block and every house, the image of Tutela, whom they call by that name for the protection of their dwellings, so that, as they enter and as they leave their homes, they may be ever reminded of their inveterate error. The heretics too, whose heart is lifted up in pride, and who, despising the humility of the Church, promise themselves lofty things, go up the most lofty mountains of their dogmas, and there prostitute their bed to demons. And because, according to the Prophet, they have turned backward, imitating the wife of Lot (Gen 19), they are changed into a pillar of salt, having the appearance of the Church's seasoning and none of its savor at all; they are cast out of doors, and are good for nothing except to be trodden under the feet of all. Therefore the Lord warns in the Gospel that he who holds the handle of the plow should not look behind him (Luke 9).

Upon a high and lofty mountain. Here he sets out the lofty places in which they sacrificed: your bed; he says this in likeness to a harlot, who prostitutes herself to lovers: they made them statues (2 Kgs 17:10) and committed fornication in them.

Rightly does God through the prophet reproach the sinful soul that goes whoring away from him and say, "You thought, if you withdrew from me, you would have more?" But like that younger son, why, you have ended up feeding pigs; why, you have lost all things; why, you have remained in want and left it very late before you grew tired and came back. Now at last realize that what the Father gave you, he could keep for you more safely.… O sinful soul, filled with harlotries, turned foul and faded, turned unclean, and still loved like that! So go back to the beautiful one, in order to return to beauty; go back and speak to him who alone suffices you.… So lift your heart up, do not leave it on the ground, or in those beggarly treasures or in a place to rot. In Adam, too, the root of all evils was avarice. You see, he wanted more than he had received, because God had not been enough for him.

For beside me you have uncovered yourself and received the adulterer; you have enlarged your bed, and you have made a covenant with them; you have loved their couch with open hand; and you adorned yourself for the king with ointment, and you have multiplied your perfumes. You sent your envoys far off, and you were humbled even to hell. LXX: You thought that if you had departed from me you would have something more. You have loved those who sleep with you, and you have multiplied your fornication with them, and you have made many to be far from you, and you have sent envoys beyond your borders, and you were humbled even to hell. Let us discuss the Hebrew first, which in this place differs much from the Seventy. To her of whom he had said above, Upon a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed, and whom he had rebuked as a harlot, prostituted at the entrance of houses and in dark places behind the doors, so that whoever wished to enter the dwelling might have the pleasure set out before his eyes: this same woman he now rebukes and refutes as an adulterous wife, because, while sleeping with her husband, she secretly received the adulterer, and uncovered the coverlet, or rather enlarged her bed, and made a pact, as though drawing up the instruments of a dowry with the adulterers. He says this to show that they worshiped idols not only in the fields and in houses, but also set up the image of Baal in the Temple, which Ezekiel too says he saw when he had dug through the wall. You have loved, he says, their couch with open hand (Ezek 8), so that you did not blush at your sin, nor desire to hide the shame of your fornication, but sinned with all freedom.

According to the Seventy, in the things in which they disagree, the sense seems to me this: Did you think, harlot, that if you had departed from me and joined yourself to your lovers, you would find something more? To her God also speaks through Ezekiel: To all harlots wages are given, but you have given wages, and in you this perverse thing has been done (Ezek 16:33). For not only did you receive nothing from your lovers, but you even lost the things you had received from your husband. What follows, You have enlarged your bed, and you have made a covenant with them, is not found in the Seventy. This woman loved those who sleep with her, the blind watchmen and the dumb dogs, who in their sleep see dreams of vanity. And she multiplied her fornication, so as to have intercourse not once with one, but often and with very many. For this reason she made many depart far from her: the Angels who were her guardians, or the holy men who withdrew from the company of such a harlot. This we can also say of the heretics, who, having forsaken God, follow their own errors and think they have something more, when by following falsehoods they have lost the truth, and have multiplied their fornication, not in one dogma but in many, and have made the Angels who preside over the Churches depart from them; who, not content with fornication near at hand, send envoys beyond their borders to the dogmas of the gentiles and the errors of barbarous nations, in order to deceive their hearers with novelty of words.

"You have made a bargain for yourselves with them" means, "You have united with many demons, and you have followed their laws, and you have covenanted to serve each one."

And behind the door. Here he designates familiar places, for they would place idols next to the entrance of their houses, so that they might better hold them in memory: he brought me in the vision of God into Jerusalem, near the inner gate, that looked toward the north, where was set the idol of jealousy to provoke to jealousy (Ezek 8:3).

For you have discovered yourself near me. Here he adds to the weight of their sin from their violation of the divine covenant, by which they were joined to God like a bride. And he says this under the likeness of an adulteress, who enlarges her bed to receive an adulterer along with her husband, and makes an agreement to marry him when her husband has been sent away; in this is signified that they worshipped idols in the temple: you were as an adulteress, that brings in strangers over her husband (Ezek 16:32).

You have loved their bed. Here he adds to the weight of their sin from their eagerness to sin.

And first, as to their propensity to sin: with open hand, that is, without any hindrance: you had a harlot's forehead, you wouldst not blush (Jer 3:3); you were not yet satisfied (Ezek 16:28).

And you adorned yourself for the king with ointment, and you have multiplied your idols. And the sense is: You sought various ornaments, so as to entice the adulterers both by sight and by scent. What is said, you adorned yourself for the king with ointment, is understood in two ways: either for God the king, while you adorn yourself with the things that he had given and prostitute yourself to idols; or certainly for the king who is the idol of the Ammonites, who is called Moloch, which in our tongue means king, and whom according to the Seventy we read in other places as Melchom (Zeph 1). And you sent your envoys far off, so that you might have a zeal for fornication not only with the idols of the neighboring nations, but also with those of nations set far away. He means the gods of Babylon and of Egypt. And you were humbled, he says, even to hell: not with the humility that is praised, but with that by which Amnon had humbled his sister Tamar (2 Sam 13). And truly it is a great humiliation, or rather a hurling down even to hell, to be hurled from the light and summit of chastity into the darkness of the brothel, or rather into the abyss of lusts. To her it is said in another place: You shall be brought down even to hell.

Second, as to eagerness to please, because they adorned themselves: and you have adorned yourself for the king with ointment, and have multiplied your perfumes, that is, using my incense for worshipping them: I have perfumed your bed with incense (Prov 7:17).

Third, as to eagerness to invite: you have sent your messengers far off, for they brought in various idols even from far off lands, and thus you were debased even to hell, that is, to the depths of sin: she doted upon them (Ezek 23:16).

But how could it not have been necessary to act as a suppliant and ask God for mercy when you had dared to commit such shameful and foul deeds? For he receives those who wish to repent. He is good by nature, and he knows our substance, as it is written. For he has spoken through one of the holy prophets: "Return, my sons, return and I will heal you from what oppresses you." Therefore this is a sin of their extreme lawlessness and of their total turning away and being fixed in evil things, that they refuse to seek mercy from God by confessing their sins.

In the multitude of your way you have labored, and you did not say: I will rest. You have found the life of your hand; therefore you have not asked me. LXX: In your many journeys you have labored, and you did not say: I will leave off. Strengthened, you have done these things; therefore you have not asked me. He who walks in the one royal way does not labor, the way about which God commanded through Moses: You shall walk in the royal way, and you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left (Deut 5:32). There is one way of truth, which says in the Gospel: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6); and many ways of falsehood, in which Jerusalem is now accused of having walked. God, knowing the difference between these ways, speaks above to those who stray: Your ways are not as my ways (Isa 55:8); and they, confessing to the Lord, say: You have made our ways turn aside from your ways (Ps 43 [44]:19). Having come to know, then, the one royal way, let us see which are the ways to the right and to the left, by which we are forbidden to go. The royal way is the tempered one, having in itself neither more nor less. For example, the straight and royal way is prudence. We turn aside to the right if we are wiser than we ought to be wise, and love cunning instead of prudence; for the serpent was more prudent than all the beasts in paradise (Gen 3), and the sons of darkness are more prudent than the sons of light (Luke 16). And we turn off to the left when we are foolish and are less wise than is needful; of whom it is said: The fool has said in his heart, There is no God (Ps 13 [14]:1). Piety too and true religion is a royal way. He turns aside to the right who is superstitious, and deserves to hear: Be not overly righteous (Eccl 7:17); to the left, he who neglects the worship of God and is numbered among the kids and the he-goats. Liberality too and stewardship is a very great virtue, from which he turns aside to the right who is stingy and does not give what is needful, not only to others but not even to himself; to the left, he who devours his substance with harlots and says with Israel: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die (Isa 22:13). Fortitude also and constancy is a royal way, from which he turns aside to the right who is rash and stubborn, to the left he who is fearful and timid. Hence the holy man, desiring to walk by the straight way, prays: Lead me, Lord, in the straight way (Ps 138 [139]:24). And in another place: Make known to me, Lord, the way in which I should walk, for to you I have lifted up my eyes (Ps 142 [143]:8). Of a way of this kind Scripture also speaks elsewhere: Seek the good way and walk in it, and you shall find purification for your souls (Jer 6:16). Jerusalem, then, was humbled even to hell for this reason, that she labored in many ways and did not say: I will amend my error by repentance; but on the contrary: I will be strengthened in what I have begun, and I will not heed the sentence of him who warns: Turn your foot away from the rough way, and your throat from thirst (Jer 2:25). Then it follows: But she answered, ἀνδρίσομαι, that is, I will act manfully, which is now said with another word: I will be strengthened. And because she has done the things that the preceding discourse related, therefore she has not entreated the Lord, having confidence in her own strength rather than in God. Further, what is set down according to the Hebrew, You have found the life of your hand; therefore you have not asked, has this sense and meaning: Because you have abounded in all things and overflowed with riches, therefore you have neglected the Lord. Such riches Solomon too refuses to have, lest he forget God (Prov 30 and 31). And to Sodom it is said through Ezekiel that because she was filled with bread, she therefore grew proud (Ezek 16). Yet not only riches but poverty too tests a man. Hence it is written above: I have tested you in the furnace of poverty (Isa 48), in which Lazarus too was tested, the poor man who endured want and infirmity together (Luke 16).

You have been wearied in the multitude of your ways. Here he shows their obstinacy in sin.

First, because they were not recalled by the labor of sin: you have been wearied in the multitude of your ways, that is, in the manifold cult of idols: we wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction (Wis 5:7).

Second, because they were not recalled by temporal prosperity: you have found life of your hand, that is, you had at hand what you needed to be able to live, and therefore you have not asked me, but have been solicitous, for your riches, and afraid of your idols, having forgotten me: they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to hell (Job 21:13).

For whom have you been anxious and feared, that you have lied, and have not remembered me, nor thought of me in your heart? For I am silent and as one not seeing, and you have forgotten me. LXX: Whom have you feared and been terrified of, and you have lied to me, and have not remembered me? Nor have you set me in your mind and in your heart. And I, seeing you, will despise you, and you have not feared me. Because, with your barns full, you have confidence in riches and would not ask me, therefore you have feared a great many. For you could not say: The Lord is my helper, and I will look down on my enemies (Ps 117 [118]:7); and again: The Lord is my light and my savior; whom shall I fear? (Ps 26 [27]:1). And even if at some time you wished to say this against the conscience of your mind, you lied. For how could you call upon me, you who had no memory of me, and never thought on the precepts of him who says: Honor the Lord, and you shall be strengthened, and apart from him fear no one (Prov 7:1)? For I am he who, according to Symmachus and Aquila, always kept silent about your sins, and passed over with dissimulation whatever crimes you committed, as though I did not see them, so that you might return to me, if not out of fear of me, at least because of my patience; I who question the sons of men not with my eyes but with my eyelids. But you on the contrary have forgotten me, and have deserved to hear: You have forgotten the law of your God, and I will forget your sons (Hos 4:6). And again: They walked perversely against me, and I will walk against them in perverse fury. The mind, which in the Seventy is joined with the heart, is not written in the Hebrew, but has been added as a kind of interpretation of what ought to be understood by the heart in the Scriptures.

Third, because you were not recalled by divine awaiting: nor thought on me in your heart; for I am silent, overlooking your sins, waiting for you, to show you mercy: you overlook the sins of men for the sake of repentance (Wis 11:24), above: I have always held my peace, I have kept silence (Isa 42:14).

I will declare your righteousness, and your works shall not profit you. When you cry out, let those whom you have gathered deliver you. LXX: I will declare your righteousness and your evils, which shall not profit you. When you cry out, let them rescue you in your tribulation. I who always kept silent, and passed over your sins as though I did not see them, will by no means keep silent any longer, but will say what I already said before: I have kept silent; shall I always keep silent? And I will declare your righteousness and your works. This is to be read as irony, as if someone were to say to a man caught in crimes: See your good works!

I will declare your justice, which you do, or which you ought to receive; your works, idols: the works of those who trust in idols shall not profit them.

This, as I have said, is obscure: "shall possess the land and inhabit my holy mountain." After all, if we take it literally and materialistically, we won't be cleansing ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit; and God will have procured for us to no purpose the conjunction of the end of the reading from the prophet with the beginning of the reading from the apostle, if to possess some earthly mountain we start getting ourselves ready for avarice, not for godliness. Well, but what should we understand by the mountain? It is obscure what [Isaiah] meant by "mountain."Yes, but if God had really let us down, he would nowhere say what mountain means. Where he does tell us openly, that is where you must love the mountain. Where he openly recommends a mountain to you, and Scripture opens itself up to say what mountain means, that is where you must love it. Yes, wherever you hear such a mountain promised you, set your sights on it.… What sort of mountain really has been promised us?… The church itself is the mountain … we are going to rise again, and we shall be the holy mountain of God. On this mountain dwells whoever has given himself to God. "But those who have given themselves to me shall possess the land and inhabit my holy mountain."

Therefore, if ever a time of tribulation comes upon you, and you begin to stretch out your hands not to the idols you have worshiped but to heaven, and to implore the help of God, let those hear you and deliver you from danger whom you worshiped in your security. God speaks to the same woman through Jeremiah also: Where are your gods which you had made? Let them rise and save you in the time of your evils (Jer 2:28). Where the Seventy translated, Let them rescue you in your tribulation, and we have said, Let those whom you have gathered deliver you, Symmachus translated: Let your synagogues rescue you. He therefore speaks properly to the Jews, that the crowd of their synagogues will not be able to deliver them in the time of siege.

But we, joining what is said to what goes before, assert this: that the wind and the tempest take away all the idols which could not deliver them, and they are like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth; but that those who have had confidence in the Lord will possess the land of which we shall read in this same Prophet: He will lift you up to the good things of the land. From this it is clear that this land is not below but above, to which the saint will climb as the Lord lifts him up, the land of which we have often spoken: Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land (Matt 5:4); and I believe that I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps 26 [27]:13). The holy mountain of God is to be understood as that of which the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks: You have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to many thousands of Angels, and to the Church of the firstborn who are written in the heavens (Heb 12:22). We can also understand the land and the mountain of the Lord which the saints are going to possess as the holy Scriptures, which the Lord threatens shall be taken away from the Jews, saying: The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and given to a nation that produces its fruits (Matt 21:43), so that they may find in them that mountain of which we read in this same Prophet (Isa 2) and in Micah: In the last days the mountain of the Lord shall be manifest (Mic 4:1).

And the wind shall carry them all away, a breeze shall take them off. But he who has confidence in me shall inherit the land and shall possess my holy mountain. And I will say: Make a way, provide a road, turn aside from the path, take away the stumbling blocks from the way of my people. LXX: For the wind shall take all these away, and the tempest shall carry them off. But those who hope in me shall possess the land and shall obtain my holy mountain by inheritance, and they shall say: Make clean the ways before his face, and take away the stumbling blocks from the way of my people. The Jews assert that these things are prophesied of the Babylonians: that when these have been overcome by the power of God, the people return to Judea and possess Mount Zion, and all the hindrances of the journey are taken away, and they suffer the ambushes of no nation, because the Lord has made the way level for his people. And they contend that these things were fulfilled under Zerubbabel and Ezra.

Your companies, gathered from various nations: let them arise and help you, and protect you in your distress (Deut 32:38).

But he that puts his trust in me. Here he confirms the difference between the just and the unjust.

And first, as to the just;

second, as to the unjust, but the wicked are like the raging sea (Isa 57:20).

He confirms the deliverance of the good from dangers from three things.

First, from divine gentleness, promising deliverance as to the restoration of their homeland: the promised land: but the meek shall inherit the land (Ps 36[37]:11).

"And it shall be said, 'Remove every obstruction from my people's way.' " Probably he said these words with regard to the Jewish Zealots, who killed their fellow citizens, because they had lapsed into idolatry and had been an obstacle for their fellows in the days of the Greeks.

And the Lord himself commanded the Apostles and all the teachers of the Church to resolve by their interpretation whatever seemed harsh and difficult, and to provide a way for understanding, and to take all stumbling blocks out of the midst, so that the people of the Lord may understand what it reads without any hindrance and may advance in the fear of God. Of these ways John the Baptist too said: Prepare the ways of the Lord, etc. (Matt 3:3). Where we have put, in the person of God, and I will say, the Seventy put and they shall say: namely those who shall possess the land and obtain the holy mountain of God by inheritance. Nor will they be content with their own salvation, but will also call forth the other peoples to teaching. Symmachus interpreted this place thus: But he who trusts in me shall possess the land, and shall obtain my holy mountain by inheritance, and shall say: Make a straight way, and so on; because he who has possessed the land and the mountain himself instructs the others to prepare a way for the Lord.

And as to the expediting of their way: and I will say, namely, to the princes of the Medes: make a way, freeing them, give free passage, giving them liberty to return to their land, turn out of the path, so that you will not impede us, take away the stumbling blocks, so that others will not do so either: take the stones out of the way (Jer 50:26).

The blessed prophets, when the Lord of the universe promises what is great and godly to them, were filled with much wonder at his glory and clemency and, as if responding from excitement, they run to give praise. We find the prophet doing precisely that here. The Lord says these things but has to add, "the exalted," that is, he who is by nature over and above all things that have come to be. "I dwell in the high places" means again that he is in the unshakeable upper reaches and that this divine and lofty nature is in the ineffable transcendence that is above. However, I think that this, the divine nature's dwelling in the exalted places, is forever. For it exists without change in these places by itself, and there is nothing in better conditions than it is, but rather the being that is in these conditions unchangingly exists unceasingly.

For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, and holy is his name: dwelling in the high and holy place, and with the contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite. LXX: Thus says the Most High, who dwells in the heights for ever, Holy among the holy is his name, the Most High resting among the holy, and giving patience to the fainthearted and life to those who are contrite of heart. The prophetic discourse had begun against the people of the Jews, whose teachers he called blind watchmen and dumb dogs and shepherds who know no understanding, and lawless sons, and the seed of adulterers and of a harlot. After this he came to Jerusalem, whom he reproaches for her fornication, because she enlarged her bed for her lovers, and received them with open hand, and adorned herself for all the idols, and sent envoys far off, so as to enjoy foreign lovers too. This rebuke finished, he comes to those who trust in the Lord, to whom he had promised the land and the mountain as a possession, and for whose return he had ordered the road to be prepared: doubtless to the Apostles, at whose preaching men of both peoples believed. Hence he begins with the praises of God, and in the following discourse bears witness to what he has promised concerning the return of his people. For thus says the Lord, high and lofty, who dwells in the heights, and Holy among the Holy, not by place but by the merit of those in whom he dwells, one of whom says in the psalm: I will exalt you, Lord, for you have upheld me (Ps 29 [30]:2); and again: Be exalted, Lord, you who judge the earth (Ps 93 [94]:2). Not that God is lifted up by human words, but, according to what is said elsewhere, The Lord has become my salvation (Ps 117 [118]:21), he becomes high even for the humble. He resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (Jas 4), so that he may lift them up and dwell in the heights. For the Lord is high, and looks upon the lowly (Ps 137 [138]:6). And in the Gospel the Angels cry out: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace (Luke 2:14). And again in the Psalms: Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights (Ps 148:1). And not only does the high one dwell in the heights, but the holy one also among the holy, he who says in another place: Be holy, for I am holy (Lev 11:44). And just as wisdom does not enter a perverse soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins (Wis 1), so the holy one dwells among the holy; and wherever there is filth, purity cannot dwell, as the saint says to the Lord: But you dwell in the holy place, the praise of Israel (Ps 21 [22]:4). Hence we too dare to say in prayer: Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be your name. And in the second psalm we read: He who dwells in the heavens shall laugh at them, and the Lord shall deride them (Ps 2:4). For Christ does not dwell in those who are earthly, but in those who are above the heavens, who tell the glory of the Lord, of whom it is said: May he hear him from his holy heaven (Ps 19 [20]:7). And again: The heaven of heaven is the Lord's (Ps 113 [115]:16). With this sense Moses too, the servant of God, agrees in like words: Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heaven belong to the Lord your God (Deut 10). We must certainly not take this in the Jewish manner, as though God, who is diffused everywhere and by whom all things are contained, were shut in any place and dwelt in heaven alone; rather, let us rightly understand the heights and the heavens as the Saints and the Powers. For he it is who dwells in heaven, of whom it is written in the Gospel: No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3:13). He rests among the holy and dwells in the humble and in those who are contrite in spirit, of whom it is said: A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit; a contrite and humbled heart God does not despise (Ps 50 [51]:19). He gives patience to the fainthearted, so that those set in straits may endure tribulation in the hope of things to come. He gives life, namely to those who were dead through sin. Of him it is said: With you is the fountain of life (Ps 35 [36]:10). He it is who says in the Gospel: I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6).

By these names the kindness of God shows that he is supreme. For those sharing in these titles have made him to be low, consorting with idols and demons. Although he is holy, these people blaspheme his name with evil desires and deeds that are not honorable. He says, I am holy, and I rejoice with the holy as I sanctify them, stirring up their power and rousing them in their attitudes, providing they show themselves to be worthy and demonstrate their wills to be contrite and penitent. For to such I will grant eternal life.Revenge is meant in the sense that God will give sinners over to troubles so that they receive discipline. God does these things, yet also he spares our race in his compassion. God shows his compassion in these instances of recompense by only disciplining us a little, given the large amount of our sins.

Who dwells in the high and holy place: but you dwell in the holy place, the praise of Israel (Ps 21:4[22:3]). And as to divine love: and with a contrite and humble spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise (Ps 50:19[51:17]).

It is easier for the Lord to restrain his anger, which we know is remote from his tranquility; but we should believe that he is more inclined to mercy, which is never detached from his majesty.… So he will not restrain his mercy in anger, but rather he will refrain from anger in mercy, as long as devoted conversion is forthcoming in this world. Remember too that in the case of the Lord anger is mentioned in a loose rather than a precise sense.

I will not contend for ever, nor will I be angry to the end; for the spirit shall go forth from my face, and I will make the breaths. LXX: I will not take vengeance on you for ever, nor will I always be angry with you. For the spirit shall go forth from me, and I have made every breath. The Lord who dwells in the heights and looks upon the lowly, whose name is holy, and who rests among the holy, who upholds the afflicted and grants life to the oppressed (Ps 112 [113]), has spoken thus: I will not always be angry, nor will I be indignant without end. I strike in order to amend; I kill in order to give life. For I have pity on my creature, and those whom I myself have made I will not allow to perish for ever. My spirit too, which shall go forth from me, or which, according to the Hebrew, Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, surrounds all things (for this is what περιειληθήσεται and περιβαλλεῖ signify), is the quickener of all things. And the breath, or in the plural the breaths (for this is what NASAMOTH נשמות means), I have made, of which it is written elsewhere: Every breath, or everything that breathes, praises the Lord (Ps 150:6). Of this spirit and breath it is written at the beginning of Genesis: God breathed in the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Job says something of the kind: The spirit of the Lord which is in my nostrils, and the breath of the Almighty which teaches me (Job 27:3). Since, then, the spirit goes forth from me, and all things are quickened and live by my breath and inspiration, it is not just that those who are upheld by my breath and spirit should perish for ever. Some of our writers say that this is the spirit by which the whole world is breathed upon and governed, and through which all things have knowledge of God; the distinguished poet, writing of it after the Stoics, says (Virgil, Aeneid 6): In the beginning, the heaven and the earth and the watery plains, the shining globe of the moon and the Titanian stars, a spirit nourishes within; and mind, poured through the limbs, moves the whole mass and mingles itself with the great body; and so on. Others, however, understand the Holy Spirit, who in the beginning was borne over the waters and gave life to all things; who goes forth from the Father, and because of the fellowship of nature is sent by the Son, who says: It is expedient for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you (John 16:7). Of him again he says: When the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who goes forth from the Father (John 15:26). Let it scandalize no one if the Spirit is said to go forth from the Father, since the Son too said of himself: I went forth from the Father and have come; for I did not go forth of myself, but he sent me (John 16:28). Of this Spirit he spoke: I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete, to be with you always, the Spirit of truth (John 14:16). This is the Spirit of whom Moses also writes: Who will grant that all the people of the Lord be prophets, and that the Lord give his Spirit upon them? (Num 11:29). And Joel, in the person of God: I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy (Joel 2:28). And Zechariah: But receive my words and my ordinances, which I command by my Spirit to my servants the Prophets (Zech 1:6). And again: I will pour out upon Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of mercy (Zech 12:10). And many other things from both Testaments, which it would take long to repeat now. This alone we say, that the same Prophet has spoken of this Spirit and breath together: Thus says the Lord God, who made the heaven; and a little after: Who gives breath to his people that is upon it, and spirit to those who tread on it (Isa 42:5).

He has shown the variety of types of care; although he dwells in the heavens, [God] considers lowly things, and though as holy he resides among holy ones he gives spiritual comfort to those who are spiritually weak. Those who are heartbroken he leads back to life. For he does not concern himself only with the righteous but also with those who have let themselves draw near to the abyss of evil, and he brings healing in various ways to those afflicted in soul.

Second, he assigns the reason from the purification of sin, promising forgiveness: for I will not contend for ever: he will not always be angry: nor will he threaten for ever (Ps 102[103]:9).

Because of the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, and I struck him; I hid, and I was indignant; and he walked mourning in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and I healed him; and I brought him back, and restored consolations to him and to those who mourn for him. I created the fruit of the lips, peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near, said the Lord, and I healed him. But the impious are like the raging sea which cannot rest, and its waves overflow into trampling and mire. There is no peace, said God, for the impious. LXX: Because of sin I grieved him for a little while, and I struck him; and I turned my face away from him, and he was grieved and walked sad in his ways. I have seen his ways, and I healed him; and I comforted him, and gave him true consolation, peace to those who are far off and to those who are near, says the Lord, and I will heal them. But those who are lawless shall be tossed like waves, and shall not be able to rest. There is no joy for the impious, says the Lord God. After the casting off of the people of the Jews and of those who refused to believe in the Savior, he had promised those who have confidence in him the land of the meek and the mountain of the saints, and had commanded the Apostles: Make a way for the returning people, and take all stumbling blocks out of the midst. And lest this seem incredible, he sets forth his power: that, being high and great, he can easily grant pardon to the penitent, and that it is just for the Creator to have pity on his creature. Because of this he adds that he was angry and grieved his people, and that he did so because they had sinned and had the covetousness of iniquity, and were not content with one iniquity, but always added sins to sins. And I struck, he says, him for a short while, in order to heal him, and I hid, understood, my face, so that he might long for me the more and say: Show your face, and we shall be saved (Ps 79 [80]:4). And I was indignant; and he, perceiving this, went about sad, saying: All the day I went about sad (Ps 37 [38]:7). And he walked mourning, or turned, in the way of his heart, so as to do penance not before the faces of men but in his heart.

Some understand this place specifically of the Savior: that because of the sins of the world he was grieved for a little while, saying: My soul is sorrowful even unto death (Matt 26:38); and that the Father struck him, he who speaks through Zechariah: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered (Zech 13:7); and that he himself said of himself in the sixty-eighth psalm: For they persecuted him whom you struck (Ps 68 [69]:27); and that God turned his face away from him, so that for a little while he took the form of a servant and walked sad, mourning the sins of the people, lamenting and bewailing Jerusalem; and that the Father, who saw his ways, therefore healed him who was free among the dead, and his flesh did not see corruption, so that he who was struck on the cross might be healed in the resurrection. And I comforted him, he says, giving him the whole world in place of the one nation of the Jews. And those who mourn for him, understood, I comforted; and there is no doubt that he means the Apostles. And he fulfilled the fruit of his lips, he who had said to him: Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession (Ps 2:8): peace upon peace, reconciling the world to God, so that he might call both peoples to himself and be healed by the Father. But the impious, of whom we have spoken above, he compares to the sea, which can never rest, but even in the greatest calm rolls with its waves breaking on the shores, and its end is mire and trampling.

And he adds the reason, setting out justice fulfilled in punishing: for the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry, and I struck him: I hid my face, that I might not give help, and he went away wandering, like a sheep without a shepherd: shall he reprove you for fear, and come with you into judgment, and not for your manifold wickedness and your infinite iniquities? (Job 22:4–5).

"Creating for his mourners the fruit of the lips," that is, at this stage they will not use anymore their outrages and blasphemies against me, but praises, which are convenient to these facts. Others assert, I made them live in perfect security, and this is the reason why they will be led to holiness.

Therefore, seeing the ways of his conversion, I healed the wounds with which I had struck him before. And I brought back to me him whom I had first cast out, and restored to him true consolation; for many are the false consolations by which the human race is deceived. Or: I comforted those who mourn for him, saying in the Gospel: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:5).

For such is the loving-kindness of God; he never turns his face away from a sincere repentance, but if any one has pushed on to the very extremity of wickedness and chooses to return afterwards toward the path of virtue, God accepts and welcomes and does everything so as to restore him to his former position.

And he promises mercy in saving them, I saw his ways, with eyes of mercy, and restored comforts to him, as to the princes, and to them that mourn for him, as to the people; or to him, as to the Jews, or as to foreigners joined to them; or as to the land and its inhabitants: who forgives all your iniquities: who heals all your diseases (Ps 102[103]:3).

It is our duty to be at peace in our own minds, for the person who does not find any disorder in himself will not quarrel with another but will be peaceable, friendly, gathering the Lord's people and a fellow worker with him, in order to increase the number of those who shall be saved in unanimity. For those who contrive enmities, and strifes, and contests and lawsuits are wicked and aliens from God.

Through love of this true life you ought, then, to consider yourself desolate in this world, no matter what happiness you enjoy. For, just as that is the true life in comparison with which this other, which is so much loved, is not to be called life, however pleasant and prolonged it may be, so that is their true comfort that God promised by the prophet saying, "I will give them true comfort, peace on peace." Without this comfort there is no more grief than consolation to be found in earthly comforts, whatever they may be.… Not by such goods do we become good, but having become good otherwise, they make these things good by their good use of them. Therefore, there is no true comfort in these things; rather, it is found where true life is. A person's happiness necessarily must come from the same source as his goodness.

What follows, I created the fruit of the lips, has this sense: I have fulfilled what I had promised, saying: As I live, says the Lord, I would rather the repentance of the sinner than his death (Ezek 33:11); or: I have granted all that I had promised before. And what is the Lord's promise? My peace I give you; my peace I leave you (John 14:27). And this is what he now says: Peace upon peace; not to one nation only, but to the whole world: namely to those who were far off and to those who were near, that is, first to the nations, and afterward to those of Israel who were willing to believe. Of these the Apostle too says: To you indeed it was necessary that the word of God be preached; but since you judge yourselves unworthy of salvation, behold, we turn to the nations (Acts 13:46). He, writing to the Ephesians and discussing most fully the people of the Circumcision and of the Gentiles, adds: But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the Blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both one, and broke down the middle wall of partition, dissolving the enmity in his flesh, and so on (Eph 2:13, 14); and again: And coming, he announced peace to you who were far off, and peace to those who were near (ibid., 17). For through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father: giving peace upon peace to those who had been far off and to those who were near, both those who had not had the Law and the Prophets and those who had received them before, he received them and healed them.

But let us humble our own souls by almsgiving and forgiving our neighbors their trespasses, by not remembering injuries or avenging ourselves. If we continually reflect on our sins, no external circumstances can make us elated, neither riches, nor power, nor authority nor honor; no, even should we sit in the imperial chariot itself, we cry bitterly.

Symmachus and Aquila, instead of saying, "to the afflicted," have said "to those who weep for him." God our Master has shown the power of repentance. For he has seen their regret and their change of thinking and the sadness of their expression, and he has deemed them to be worthy of encouragement, they and those who weep for them. Now it is the heralds of truth who weep for them, while the blessed Paul prayed that he might be cut off for their sake. These things he has done, God who created fruit of the lips, that is, he who established the sacrifice of praise, rather than the cult appointed by the law.

Third, he confirms their deliverance from the predictions of the prophets: I created, as though restoring them from nothing; the fruit of the lips, of the prophets who foretold these things, peace to him that is far off, dispersed in captivity: and coming, he preached peace to them that were nigh: and to them that were afar off (Eph 2:17).

But the impious, or lawless, shall be tossed like the raging sea, and shall never be able to rest. Although this can be understood of every impious man, yet it refers properly to the people of the Jews, who cried out with one voice and persevered in their impiety, saying: Crucify, crucify such a one. We have no king but Caesar (John 19:15). As, then, the raging sea cannot rest, but its waves overflow and roll up on the shores and are sucked back again, and breaking upon themselves make a mire that is trampled underfoot, so the impious will be subject to eternal trampling; they have no joy, and they rest in no peace, because they persevere in being impious.

But the wicked are like the raging sea. Here he confirms what he had said about the wicked through a certain similitude.

And first, he sets out the similitude itself: raging, that is, always fluctuating; and the waves thereof cast up dirt and mire, to the shore, where they make mire and are trampled: he shall make the deep sea to boil like a pot (Job 41:22).

For that joy that is after the fashion of the world is not true joy. Hear the prophet Isaiah: "There is no joy, says my God, to the wicked." What the wicked call joy is not joy, such as he [David] knew, who made no account of their joy; let us believe him, brothers. He was a man, but he knew both kinds of joy. He certainly knew the joys of the cup, for he was a man; he knew the joy of the table, he knew the joys of marriage, he knew those joys worldly and luxurious.… But you say, I don't see that light which Isaiah saw. Believe and you shall see it. For perhaps you do not have the eye to see it. For it is a certain type of eye by which that beauty is discerned. For just as there is an eye of the flesh by which this light is seen, so there is an eye of the heart by which that joy is perceived. Perhaps your eye is wounded, dimmed, disturbed by passion, by greed, by indulgence, by senseless lust. Your eye is disturbed. You cannot see that light. Believe before you see. You shall be healed, and then you will see.

And he deduces a proposition: there is no peace to the wicked, namely, that they may be saved, above (Isa 48:22) has the same.