Isaiah 65

Who then, one might say to the Jews, is he that was made manifest? For if it is the prophet, let them say just when he was hid, afterward to appear again. And what manner of prophet is this, who was not only openly made manifest from obscurity but also stretched out his hands on the cross? None surely of the righteous, save the Word of God only, who, incorporeal by nature, appeared for our sakes in the body and suffered for all.

They sought me who before did not ask for me: they found, who did not seek me. I said: Behold me, behold me, to a nation that did not call upon my name. LXX: I appeared to those not seeking me: I was found by those who did not ask for me. I said: Behold me, in a nation that did not call upon my name. To the prayer of the people mingled with complaints, in which it had said: Why have you made us err, O Lord, from your way: you have hardened our hearts, so that we did not fear you (Isa 63:17)? there answers, as the Jews would have it, God the Father; as we hold, the Lord and Savior: So far am I from being harsh and cruel, I who prefer the repentance of the sinner to his death, and do not repel repentant sons, provided they have kept the dignity of their name, that I wish to save even strangers (Ezek 33). For those who did not seek me, and could not say: We have found him of whom Moses wrote in the Law, and the prophets, Jesus (John 1:45), to these very ones I appeared; of whom the Prophet also testified elsewhere: Those to whom nothing was announced concerning him will hear, and those who have not heard will understand (Isa 52:15). But you, who meditate on the law of God day and night, boast in vain of a repentance whose works you do not do. Hence the Evangelists and apostles, always wishing to strengthen the coming of the Lord with testimonies of the Old Testament, said: That what was spoken through the Prophet might be fulfilled (Matt 1:22). The centurion was not seeking the Lord, and he heard from the Lord: Not even in Israel have I found such faith (Luke 7:9; Matt 8:10). The Syrophoenician woman did not know the utterances of the Prophets, and she is praised by the voice of the Lord: O woman, great is your faith. The nobleman (John 4), who in Greek is called βασιλικὸς, and whom, from the royal court, we can more correctly render palatine, found healing not only for his son but for his whole house. And what is said according to the Hebrew: They sought me who before did not ask, refers to the same sense: that those who formerly had no knowledge of God afterwards seek the Lord and come to know him by revelation; he who was also revealed to Paul while he was persecuting the Church of believers (Acts 9). And he says to the apostle Peter: Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood have not revealed it to you, but my Father who is in heaven (Matt 16:17). Him Moses too was seeking when he said to God: If I have found favor with you, show yourself to me openly, that I may see you (Exod 33:13). Looking for the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, while he longed for the recompense of things to come, he contemplated in his mind the invisible God as if he saw him. Of whom it is also read in the Psalms: The hope of all the ends of the earth, and in the sea far off (Ps 64 [65]:6). And in Genesis: He himself shall be the expectation of the nations (Gen 49:10). And what follows: I said: Behold, I am: to a nation that did not call upon my name (Exod 3:14), agrees with that sense: He who is has sent me to you. Who, though he was in the form of God, did not think it robbery to be equal to God, etc. (Phil 2); but, calling forth the nations of the whole world, he made one nation of his name, that of the Christians.

And after that Righteous One was put to death, we flourished as another people, and shot forth as new and prosperous corn; as the prophets said, "And many nations shall betake themselves to the Lord in that day for a people: and they shall dwell in the midst of all the earth." But we are not only a people, but also a holy people, as we have shown already. "And they shall call them the holy people, redeemed by the Lord." Therefore we are not a people to be despised, nor a barbarous race, nor such as the Carian and Phrygian nations; but God has even chosen us and He has become manifest to those who asked not after Him. "Behold, I am God," He says, "to the nation which called not on My name." For this is that nation which God of old promised to Abraham, when He declared that He would make him a father of many nations; not meaning, however, the Arabians, or Egyptians, or Idumaeans, since Ishmael became the father of a mighty nation, and so did Esau; and there is now a great multitude of Ammonites. Noah, moreover, was the father of Abraham, and in fact of all men; and others were the progenitors of others. What larger measure of grace, then, did Christ bestow on Abraham? This, namely, that He called him with His voice by the like calling, telling him to quit the land wherein he dwelt. And He has called all of us by that voice, and we have left already the way of living in which we used to spend our days, passing our time in evil after the fashions of the other inhabitants of the earth; and along with Abraham we shall inherit the holy land, when we shall receive the inheritance for an endless eternity, being children of Abraham through the like faith. For as he believed the voice of God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness, in like manner we having believed God's voice spoken by the apostles of Christ, and promulgated to us by the prophets, have renounced even to death all the things of the world. Accordingly, He promises to him a nation of similar faith, God-fearing, righteous, and delighting the Father; but it is not you, "in whom is no faith."

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. [Isaiah 65:1] But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.

["I was ready to be sought by those who did not seek me."] These words should be understood as about the Savior, who, sent by the Father's love and coming with his own compassionate love, was revealed to all people. He became savior of those who had not made him welcome nor had invited him.

They have sought me. Here the judge, namely, God, gives the sentence of the separation of the wicked from the good, in the reception of the promised salvation. And this is divided into two parts: in the first, he pronounces the sentence of separation; in the second, he determines the manner of execution: thus says the Lord (ch. 66). Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he promises a response, showing the opportunity of responding: they have sought me that before asked not for me, as if to say: thus far, you Jews have not sought after me, but idols; because you ask, I will respond. Mystically, this concerns the conversion of the gentiles: I was found by them that did not seek me (Rom 10:20). And he sets out the promise: I said: behold me, behold me, to a nation, I will respond, namely, to the Jews, or I will be turned to the converted gentiles, I to my beloved, and my beloved to me (Song 6:2).

I have spread out my hands all the day to an unbelieving people, who walk in a way not good, after their own thoughts. LXX: I have spread out my hands all the day to an unbelieving and contradicting people, who have not walked in the good way, but after their sins. This which was said above: I appeared to those who did not ask for me: I was found by those who did not seek me, the apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, when he had expounded it of the person of the nations, added: But to Israel he says: I have spread out my hands to an unbelieving and contradicting people (Rom 10:21); a people which, when it was overcome by the benefits of the Lord and saw signs beyond what a man can do, said: This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons (Luke 11:15). And again: You are a Samaritan and have a demon (John 8:48). And again: though you are a man, you make yourself God (John 10:33). And elsewhere: This man is not from God, for he does not keep the sabbath (John 9:16). And many other things, which it would take long to string together. Finally, when he on the cross stretched out his hands to the unbelieving people and said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do (Luke 23:34), they on the other side said: Ah! you who destroy the Temple and in three days build it up: let him come down now from the cross, and we believe him. He saved others, himself he cannot save (Matt 27:40). Of him Simeon too, holding the little child in his arms, prophesied: Behold, this one is set for the fall and for the rising of many, and for a sign that will be spoken against (Luke 2:34). At Rome the Jews say to Paul: Concerning this sect it is known to us that everywhere it is spoken against (Acts 28:22). We can also take the spread-out hands of the generosity of the giver, in that he denied them nothing when they asked, but at once restored health to the leper who asked (Matt 8), and the man blind from birth received eyes (John 9), and thousands of the people, hungry in the desert, besides children and women, were satisfied (Matt 14). The spread-out hands also signify the mercy of a parent eager to receive his children into his bosom. But they, on the contrary, walked in a way not good, and followed their own thoughts. To them the Lord speaks through the Prophet: Turn your foot away from the rough way (Prov 4:27). For they had loved strangers, and like a harlot had said: I will go after my lovers (Hos 2:5). And leaving the good way, which says in the Gospel: I am the way (John 14:6), they walked on the broad and spacious way that leads to death, and followed their own thoughts; and the Prophet, shunning these, entreats the Lord: From my hidden faults cleanse me, O Lord, and from those of others spare your servant. If they have not ruled over me, then I shall be spotless (Ps 18 [19]:13, 14). And the Apostle teaches that those who did not have the knowledge of God are handed over to a reprobate mind and to evil works, to do the things that are not fitting (Rom 1). But let us say with the voice of the Psalmist: Lead me in the right way (Ps 138 [139]:24).

If, dearly beloved, we comprehend faithfully and wisely the beginning of our creation, we shall find that humankind was made in God's image, to the end that he might imitate the Creator and that our race attains its highest natural dignity, by the form of the divine goodness being reflected in us, as in a mirror. And assuredly to this form the Savior's grace is daily restoring us, so long as that which in the first Adam fell, is raised up again in the second. And the cause of our restoration is nothing else but the mercy of God, whom we would not have loved unless he had first loved us and dispelled the darkness of our ignorance by the light of his truth.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you. But Esaias is very bold, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was made manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. [Isaiah 65:2]

It is the nations who did not have a prophet sent to them who recognize their maker and benefactor, whereas those who received all sorts of care gained no profit but continued in their sinful habits. The phrase "all day long I have held out my hands" refers to the care for them that he gave for all that time, but the saving suffering of the cross in which he stretched out his hands is also alluded to here.

Second, he sentences separation: I have spread forth my hands. And first, he sentences the separation of the wicked from the good, because of sins of transgression; second, because of sins of omission: and you, that have forsaken (Isa 65:11). The first of these is divided into two: in the first, he threatens punishment for the wicked; in the second, he promises rewards for the good: thus says the Lord (Isa 65:8). Concerning the first, he does two things: first, he denounces their fault of transgression; second, he threatens punishment: these shall be smoke (Isa 65:5). He denounces their fault from three things. First, from their ungratefulness for his benefits: I have spread forth my hands, giving many benefits, all the day, the whole time since I took them to myself; mystically, I have spread forth my hands, on the cross: every one walks (Jer 16:12) in a way that is not good.

A people that provokes me to anger, before my face always: who sacrifice in gardens, and offer sacrifice upon bricks (From Exod 20:4). LXX: This people that embitters me in my sight: they always sacrifice in gardens, and burn incense upon brick ÷ to demons that are not. ⁚ Though the Lord says: You shall not make for yourself an idol, nor a likeness of anything that is in heaven, and that is upon the earth. And though through Moses he rebukes those who do so: They provoked me with strange gods, and with their abominations they provoked me to bitterness. They sacrificed to demons, and not to God (Deut 32:16, 17); they, out of a zeal for sinning, as if to irritate and provoke God, not only did what was not lawful, but did it continually and always, sinning in the sight of the Lord, to whose eyes all things lie open, or in his Temple, sacrificing victims to idols. And so that nothing might be lacking to the sacrilege, they sacrificed in gardens and burned frankincense upon bricks, joining luxury to idolatry and pleasure to sacrifices; and instead of the one altar which by the law of God had been built of unhewn stones, they made baked bricks and the turf of the fields bloody with the blood of victims. Let this be said according to the letter: but according to the spiritual understanding, every heretic provokes the Lord to anger, and in the falsity of his doctrines offers unclean sacrifices, by no means firm and lasting forever, but like gardens green for a short time, making provision for the delights of the flesh. To him it is said: All flesh is grass, and all its glory as the flower of grass. The grass has withered, and the flower has fallen: but the word of the Lord, which is preached in the churches, abides forever (Isa 40:6, 7). Naboth, not wishing such gardens to be made out of his vineyard, poured out his blood to Ahab, that most impious king (1 Kgs 21). For it was not fitting that a father's inheritance should perish, and that, the vines being cut down which bear the fruit that gladdens the heart of man, the herbs of pleasures and vices should spring up in the place of virtues. There is reported a deservedly celebrated and praised saying of the wisest man among the Greeks, who calls all the pleasures of the world, and the pomp and luxury of the world swiftly passing away, the gardens of Adonis. The heretics also sacrifice upon stones, when they strive to make their errors and their studied lies firm by the dialectical art, and to build them up square, and to strengthen them by γραμμικαῖς, as they say, ἀνάγκαις, that is, by dust cut on a brick and marked out with lines. But what is read in the Seventy: to demons that are not, and is not found in the Hebrew, must be taken in this sense: that according to the letter and according to the spirit, neither do demons subsist, since they have already fallen away from God, who truly is, nor do the sects of the heretics, which hold no truth, but pass away and perish like shadows. Hence Esther too speaks to the Lord: Do not hand over your inheritance to those who are not (Esth 14:11). And the saint prays in the psalm: Forgive me, that I may be refreshed before I depart, and be no more (Ps 38 [39]:14). For he who, while he lives in this body, has not obtained pardon of his sins, and so departs from life, perishes to God and ceases to be, although he subsists to himself in punishments.

Second, from the continuity of their sinning: a people that continually provoke me to anger before my face, for all things are naked and open to his eyes (Heb 4:13), or because they placed idols in the temple: they have provoked me with that which was no god (Deut 32:21). Third, from the variety or seriousness of their sins, as to four things. First, as to the worship of idols: that immolate, to idols, in gardens, for they worshipped idols in places of pleasure, upon bricks, upon altars constructed from bricks, so that they could sustain the fire of sacrifice, above: they shall be confounded for their idols (Isa 1:29).

Who dwell in tombs, and sleep in the shrines of idols: who eat swine's flesh, and profane broth is in their vessels: who say, Depart from me, do not come near me, for you are unclean. LXX: In tombs and in caves they sleep for the sake of dreams: who eat swine's flesh and the broth of victims; all their vessels are profane: who say, Go far from me, do not come near me, for I am clean. There was no sacrilege that the people of Israel left out: not only sacrificing in gardens and kindling frankincense upon bricks, but also sitting, or dwelling, in tombs, and sleeping in the shrines of idols, where they used to lie upon the spread-out skins of victims, so as to learn the future from dreams. This the error of the heathen celebrates to this day in the temple of Aesculapius and in many others, which are nothing else but the tombs of the dead. Nor were they content with this end of impiety, but they also fed on the flesh of swine, which was forbidden by the law, and devoured with greedy throats yesterday's broth, which the Greeks call ἕωλον (Lev 12). Hence both they themselves and their vessels were unclean, and they grew daily to such a pitch of wantonness and pride that whoever was not led by a like error they reckoned unclean, and fled from his touch, as the Samaritans and the Jews do to us, and all the heretics, such as lately sprang up in Gaul under a hot-headed master, who, shunning the basilicas of the Martyrs, flee from us who celebrate prayers there according to custom, as though we were unclean. Yet it is not so much they who do this as the demons dwelling in them, who cannot bear the power and the scourges of the holy ashes. And which of the heretics does not rest in tombs, does not sleep in the caves of his masters? Such was Marcion, and Valentinus, and lately Eunomius, who bore witness to the uncleanness of his mind by his leprous flesh; who, leaving the light of the Holy Spirit and the upper room in which the Apostles stayed, linger in the darkness of the devil and love the caves which Jeremiah condemns in mystical speech: My inheritance has become to me as the cave of a hyena (Jer 12:8), which our people call a beast: an animal that always pursues corpses and lives on the juice and gore of dead bodies. Against these, who dwell in caves, Habakkuk too said with a voice of lament: Woe to him who gives his neighbor a drink of a turbid draught, and makes him drunk, that he may look upon his caves (Hab 2:15). Of these caves the Lord too was speaking: It is written, My Father's house shall be called a house of prayer: but you have made it a den of robbers (Matt 21:13), in which you kill the souls of those you deceive, so that you do not see in them the visions of which the same Savior says: I have multiplied visions, and in the hands of the Prophets I have been likened (Hos 12:10). And another says to him: You spoke, he says, in a vision to your sons (Ps 88 [89]:20); but you believe dreams and phantasms, which the Lord commanded us not to believe. These feed on the flesh of swine, of whom it is said: Do not cast your pearls before swine (Matt 7:6). And they eat profane broth, which is seasoned in their books with heretical art. All their vessels are unclean, that is, both their bodies and their teachings; and they come to such madness that whoever is not like them they detest as one lost.

Second, as to their enthusiasm for divinations: that dwell in sepulchers, that they might have answers from the dead; in the temples (delubris), temples of idols so called from diluendo ("washing"), for they thought all things were washed away there; or because of the fonts, which were there for washing the victims and priests; and sleep, upon the hides of the victims for the purpose of divination: your temples shall be destroyed (Ezek 6:6). Third, as to the uncleanness of their food: that eat swine's flesh, and profane broth, from pork, below: they that did eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse (Isa 66:17).

So insofar as they say, "Do not touch me, because I am pure," they are like this Pharisee who had invited the Lord and who thought [the Lord] did not know the woman, just because he had not stopped her touching his feet. But in another respect the Pharisee is better, in that while he thought Christ was only a man, he did not believe that sins could be forgiven by a man. So the Jews appear to have a better understanding than the heretics. What did the Jews say? "Who is this who even forgives sins?" Does a mere man have the audacity to claim this for himself?" What … does the heretic say? "I forgive, I cleanse, I sanctify."

These shall be a smoke in my fury, a fire burning all the day. Behold, it is written before me: I will not be silent, but I will render and repay into their bosom your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, says the Lord, who sacrificed upon the mountains and upon the hills, reproached me; and I will measure back their former work into their bosom. LXX: This is the smoke of my fury: a fire burns in it all the days. Behold, it is written in my sight: I will not be silent until I render and repay into their bosom their sins, and those of their fathers, says the Lord: who burned incense upon the mountains and upon the hills, reproached me; I will render their works into their bosom. Because of your works, and the incredible arrogance of your mind, in that, being unclean, you thought the clean unclean, you shall be smoke, a burning fire, which is kindled from my fury. But fury, forgetfulness, anger, repentance we ought to take in God in the same way as feet, hands, eyes, ears and the other members which the incorporeal and invisible God is said to have. Not that he is open to these passions, he who by the gift of his grace extinguishes them in us; but so that through our words we may understand God's disposition toward us. For anger, which is the desire for vengeance, is not defined in God as it is in men; it has its matter in our vices, not in the will of the Lord: for we treasure up for ourselves wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, so that a wise flame may consume our thistles and thorns, and the tares that we have brought in place of God's seed, and also the wood, hay and stubble that we have built upon Paul's foundation (1 Cor 3). Of this perpetual fire we read in the song of Moses too: A fire is kindled from my fury, and it shall burn down to hell below. It shall devour the earth and its produce: it shall burn the foundations of the mountains, and my arrows shall consume them (Deut 32:22). The sense of this testimony is that the fire and vengeance of God always burns for sinners, and pursues them even to the lower world. Such was that rich man too in the Gospel (Luke 16), clothed in purple, who, while Lazarus rested in Abraham's bosom, was tormented with eternal burnings. The same flame will also burn the earth, that is, our flesh, and its produce, that is, the desires of the flesh, and the foundations of the mountains that raise themselves against the knowledge of God. The darts of God will also destroy the mountains themselves, so that, humbled in punishments, they cease to be mountains.

Here is the power that avenges. It is said that he, hearing these things, is minded to comfort us in our ignorance. For since the memory is maintained for us from writings of actions in the past that encourage us to remember and almost bring to life in our minds those actions of long ago, this is what he teaches. Now all these things are known to God and before they happened. They were already in his mind.

Fourth, as to their contempt for the just: that say, namely, to those who do not adore idols: he is grievous unto us (Wis 2:15); or that say, to God: who say to God: depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of your ways (Job 21:14). These shall be smoke. Here he threatens punishment. And first, the length of the punishment: smoke, that is, like smoke is consumed by fire, so shall they be burned by my anger: a fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell (Deut 32:22).

Behold, he says, it is written before me. For all our sins lie open to the eyes of God, and are written in those books of which we read in Daniel: Thrones were set, and the books were opened (Dan 7:10). Of which it is said in another place: Let them be written upon the earth (Jer 17:13). And he will by no means keep silent any longer, he who had said before: I have kept silent: shall I always keep silent? says the Lord (Isa 42:14). But he will render to each what he has worked, into his bosom, that is, into the secret place of the heart, so that their own conscience may torment them. Of this the prophet Hosea too prophesies: Their princes shall fall by the sword because of the unruliness of their tongue (Hos 7:16). This is their own detraction in their bosom, which proceeds from the heart of each. Something similar is written in Proverbs: In their own bosom all things are rendered to the wicked (Prov 5:22). This bosom, because of the ruling part of the soul (Greek ἡγεμονικὸν), is called by another name the head: I have given their ways upon their heads (Ezek 9:10). And elsewhere: His sorrow shall be turned upon his head, and upon his crown his iniquity shall come down (Ps 7:17). But there is also a good bosom, which will enjoy the holiness of conscience, of which the Psalmist said: And my prayer shall be turned into my bosom (Ps 34 [35]:13). Bosom is also understood as affection and love toward anyone, as when the word is addressed to a husband: The wife who is in your bosom; and to a parent: They will bring your sons in their bosom (Luke 16). Hence all who have Abraham as their father, and have deserved to be like him in his virtues, rest in his bosom.

Second, the certainty of punishment: behold it is written, for their sin is firmly in memory, and their punishment in preordination; I will not be silent, overlooking their sins: the sin of Judah is written (Jer 17:1), above: I have held my peace, always I have kept silence (Isa 42:14).

For we ought not to take as fathers, whose iniquities and sins are now repaid to us, those from whose seed our bodies were born. Otherwise Moses himself, who had said that the sins of the fathers are to be repaid to the sons to the third and fourth generation of those who hate God (Exod 20), interprets his own sentence, saying: The sons shall not die for the sins of the fathers: but each shall die in his own sin (Deut 24:16). Ezekiel approves the same sentence, that that parable is by no means to be spoken: The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the teeth of the sons are set on edge (Ezek 18:2), but that only his teeth are set on edge who has eaten, and that the sinning soul perishes, and does not pay for another's sins. From this we understand that those are to be taken as fathers, whether in the good sense or in the contrary, to whom each is added when he has departed from this life. Now Israel sacrificed upon the mountains and hills when it set up the golden calves in Bethel and Dan. And it reproached God over his precepts, when it neglected his ceremonies and gave the worship of God to demons: whose works are to be repaid into their bosom (Hos 4). And every heretic who despises the simplicity of the Church sacrifices on the mountains and reproaches God, when he despises his precepts.

Third, the multitude of the punishments, because they are for all the sins of their fathers: but I will render: I am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children (Exod 20:5). Who have reproached me, by adoring idols in the high places; and also for the sins of their youth: and I will measure back their first work, as if to say, I will make the punishment commensurate to the fault, above: she has received of the hand of the Lord double (Isa 40:2).

Thus says the Lord: As if a grain is found in a cluster, and it is said: Do not destroy it, for it is a blessing; so will I do for the sake of my servants, that I may not destroy the whole. LXX: Thus says the Lord: As if a grape is found in a cluster, and it is said: Do not touch it, for there is a blessing in it: so will I do for the sake of my servant, that I may not destroy all. The Lord had said that Israel would perish, and that all its sins lay open to his sight, and that he would repay the works of each into their bosom. After this he brings in a likeness and an example by comparison, to teach that each perishes by his own sin, and that, even if the multitude of sinners be very great, one righteous man does not perish through the vice of all. If anyone, he says, in a cluster and bunch of grapes which could not come to ripeness and has borne sour fruit, or has been spoiled by some fault of the air and the soil, finds one grain unharmed, which still has hope of growing larger and coming to its usual ripeness, let him say to another: Do not touch it, but let it be, that it may grow, for it is a blessing of the Lord that, among so great a multitude of grapes, it alone escaped the drought: so, he says, out of the innumerable multitude of the Jews, which has offended God, if I find a few righteous, I will set them free from the destruction of the many. And this I will do for the sake of my servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom the promise was made, or for the sake of those who serve me among very many sinners. Something of the kind we read in Genesis too, when righteous men to free the city from its sin are sought, little by little, from fifty down to ten (Gen 18), and Lot alone, as a righteous man, is snatched out of Sodom with his daughters (Gen 19). Of him it is written in the Catholic Epistle (2 Pet 2) that his soul was tormented as he saw abominations committed, and that he showed the judgment of his soul by the bearing of his body. Enoch too, alone among a very great multitude of sinners, was taken up to God (Gen 5). And Noah with his children the Flood, sent because all flesh was turning away from the service of the Lord, could not destroy (Gen 7). Abraham too was saved from the fire of the Chaldeans by the integrity of his faith (Gen 11). With this sense the words of Jeremiah also agree, spoken in the person of the Lord: As something warm in the desert, I found Israel with those slain by the sword (Jer 38:2 LXX; Vulg. 31:2). For when, he says, the whole world lay lifeless, wounded by the swords of idolatry, I found Israel in Abraham to have the warmth of faith, like a physician who after a battle, among the corpses of the dead, where he perceives that someone still has something of life in his beating veins, applies care to his wounds to restore him to health. For what is written ὡς θερμὸν, that is, as something warm, the Latin translator, deceived by the ambiguity of the word, rendered lupine, and in this most of the Greeks also err. And yet it should be known that in the Hebrew, for warmth, THODA (תודה) is written, which means grace: namely, that Israel was saved by the grace of God, and not by the merit of its own works.

Once again the richness of the loving nature of God is shown clearly in this simile. For just as mature wine is found on the vine for whose sake the whole is saved, spared and is not cut off by anyone, so too [God says], "If I find anyone serving me, I will spare them all, just as I swore to Abraham. When I was threatening judgment of Sodom, I showed my compassion even to five people." He says this to establish his goodness.

If anyone finds one ripe grape in a bunch, he spares the whole bunch on its account, in order to present to God the firstfruits. In the same way, since I promised to Abraham to bless all the nations in his seed, I maintained the seed of all Israel when they sinned, and I did not overlook their slavery in Egypt. For this reason, I freed them from their Babylonian captivity.… The "valley of Achor" is an allusion to the contrition that is among the churches. For Achar or Achor, having stolen and broken the law of the ban, was thrown into a ravine, and through this tragic example they were filled with much contrition.

Thus says the Lord. Here he promises rewards to the good. And first, as to their preservation from evils: as if a grain, of a grape; it is a blessing, that is, it pleases God for it to be reserved for a blessing; for the sake of my servants, your fathers; that I may not destroy the whole, people of the Jews, above: it shall be as when one gathers (Isa 17:5) clusters in the vintage.

The holy Scripture often calls the church "the holy mountain" whose lesser part came from Israel. For if Israel had received the faith that is in our Lord Jesus Christ, they would have formed the greater part of the church's composition, and the multitude of the nations would have been added to them. But because they did not believe, they became the lesser of the two. The nations became greater, while Israel became quite small. For the remnant will be saved. Therefore they inherit a small portion in the holy mountain, that is, the church.

And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah one possessing my mountains: and my elect shall inherit it, and my servants shall dwell there, and the plains shall be folds for flocks, and the valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who have sought me. LXX: And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah, and it shall inherit my holy mountain, and my elect shall inherit, and my servants shall dwell there, and in the woodland there shall be sheepfolds for flocks, and the valley of Achor for the rest of herds, for my people who have sought me out. Him whom above he called the grain of the cluster, or the grape, or (as many would have it) the bunch, he now calls the seed of Jacob and Judah, who is to possess the mountains, or his mountain. Most understand the seed of Jacob and Judah as Christ, of whom it is said in Genesis: Judah, your brothers shall praise you (Gen 49:8), and the rest. For no one doubts that the Savior was born of the stock of Judah. But others would have the Apostles understood, of whom we have often said: The remnant shall be saved (Isa 1:9). And: Unless the Lord Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah (Rom 9:29). These possessed the mountain of the Lord by their awareness of Christ dwelling in them, saying: We have come to Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22). Or his mountains, of which it is sung in the psalms: Mountains are round about it, and the Lord is round about his people (Ps 124 [125]:2). And: Its foundations are in the holy mountains (Ps 86 [87]:1). And the elect of the Lord will possess Zion, and his servants will dwell in it. Of whom it is written in the same volume: The seed of Abraham his servants, the sons of Jacob his elect (Ps 104 [105]:6). Whoever, then, is still a seed and has not been formed into a son, he is a servant of the Lord, to whom he says in the Gospel: I know that you are the seed of Abraham, but not yet sons (John 8). For if they were the seed of Abraham, they would surely do the works of Abraham. But he who is a son is also an elect of the Lord. Hence the elect possesses Jerusalem, and the servants dwell in it; and of the difference between sons and servants it is said: You have not received the spirit of slavery again unto fear, but the spirit of adoption (Rom 8:15).

Those who have attained the summit of perfection have as their harbor not life, or the resurrection or any of these admirable things but the desired One himself, for whose sake they counted misfortune a delight, and weary toil the sweetest repose, and time spent in the desert more desirable than city life, and poverty fairer than wealth and irksome slavery sweeter than any position of authority. This is the reward awaited by the doers of virtue. "It is an inheritance for those who serve God," as the prophet Isaiah exclaims.

Second, as to their advancement in good things. And first, as to the multiplication of their seed: and I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, above: except the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we had been as Sodom (Isa 1:9). Second, as to the restoration of the inheritance of their fathers: and my elect shall inherit it: they shall possess you for their inheritance: and you shall be their inheritance (Ezek 36:12).

And there shall be, he says, plains, or woodlands, as folds for flocks. For plains, SARON (שרון) is put in the Hebrew. The whole region around Lydda, Joppa and Jamnia is suited to pasturing flocks. Of it it is also written in the Acts of the Apostles: But the woodlands shall be turned into sheepfolds (Acts 9), according to what is sung in the psalm: The voice of the Lord perfecting the stags, and he will lay bare the woodlands (Ps 28 [29]:9), or the thickets of the forests, so that robbers may cease to lurk there, and beasts and venomous animals, and places once of ambush and blood may pass into churches of the Lord, and flocks may be pastured there by him who laid down his life for his sheep. Of whom it is written: He will shepherd us forever (Ps 47 [48]:15). This voice of the Lord, perfecting the stags and laying bare the thickets of the forests, cries out through John in the desert: Already the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and cast into the fire (Matt 3:10). And again: Every valley shall be filled (Luke 3:5); of which it is now also said: and the valley of Achor a resting place for herds, and for rest for my people who have sought me out. Of this valley we also read in the book of Joshua son of Nun that Achan was put to death there, who stole from the accursed thing and from the spoils of Jericho, and was put to death with all his house; and from the fact that he troubled the people, the very place where this happened received the name ACHOR (עכור), that is, of trouble and tumult (Josh 7). The valley of Achor, then, in which there was once a curse and punishment, will be for the rest of herds. Expounding this, Paul says: Is God concerned for oxen (1 Cor 9:9)? or does he not rather speak of us, since he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes on the floor ought to thresh in hope of sharing? Of this valley it is also written mystically in Hosea: I will speak to her heart, without doubt to Jerusalem's; and I will give her possessors from there, and the valley of Achor, to open her understanding (Hos 2:14). For this reason, then, the valley of Achor is handed over as a possession to the herds of the people of God, and the woodlands are turned into folds for flocks: that understanding may be opened, and the truth of the Lord be known.

Third, as to the fertility of their pastures: and the plains, and the valley of Achor, so called, because they stoned Achan there (Josh 7:24–26); I will give them the valley of Achor for an opening of hope (Hos 2:15).

And you who have forsaken the Lord, and have forgotten my holy mountain; who set a table for fortune, and pour libations upon it: I will number you for the sword, and you shall all fall in the slaughter. LXX: But you who have forsaken me, and have forgotten my holy mountain, and prepare a table for fortune, and fill a drink for the demon: I will hand you over to the sword: you shall all fall slain. In places once wooded and full of trouble, in the places of the Gentiles, there will be folds for the sheep, that is, the Churches of believers from the whole world. But you, O people of Israel, who have forsaken the Lord and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, who have forgotten his holy mountain, of which we have often spoken, whether the Lord Savior, who is the mountain of mountains and the holy one of all the holy, or Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem: you who do this and that, I will hand over to the sword, so that you may all fall slain together. What the sword is, we shall say later. You set, he says, a table for fortune, and pour libations upon it: or according to the Seventy: You prepare a table for fortune, and fill a cup for the demon, or κέρασμα, which all have likewise translated, that is, a mixed drink. Now there is in all cities, and especially in Egypt and in Alexandria, an old custom of idolatry, that on the last day of the year and of the month which is their last, they set out a table loaded with feasts of every kind, and a cup mixed with honeyed wine, taking an omen of the fertility either of the past year or of the coming one. And this the Israelites did, worshiping the monstrosities of all the images, and they offered not victims upon the altar, but poured out libations upon a table of this kind. And where the Seventy translated to the demon, the Hebrew has MENNI (מני), which Symmachus rendered without me: so that the sense is: You who prepare a table for fortune, and fill a drink without me; to teach that it is done not for him but for the demon. Now the sword by which they are slain is taken for punishment. For not all the people of Israel were handed over to the sword, since we see how many thousands of them are scattered over the whole world; but to punishments and torments, to captivity and the utmost servitude, according to what is said elsewhere: All the sinners of my people shall die by the sword; and in the Song of Deuteronomy: I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour the flesh of the wounded (Deut 32:42). It can hardly be believed that the arrows of the Lord are made drunk with blood, and that his sword is sated with the flesh of the wounded. Job speaks of these arrows, which pierced him at every moment of the hours: The arrows of the Lord are in my body: their fury drinks up my spirit; for when I begin to speak, they goad me (Job 6:4). But according to tropology it must be said that all who desert the Church and forget the holy mountain of God, and give themselves over to spirits of error and doctrines of demons, prepare a table for fortune, believing that nothing is God's concern, but that all things are governed either by the course of the stars or by the changes of fortune: whom Paul rebukes, saying: You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons (1 Cor 10:20, 21): for they will be handed over to eternal punishments, so that none of them can escape the slaughter and the ruin.

If a person, because he is too tenacious of life or too weak in the face of suffering, or because of the apparently convincing arguments of such as seek to induce us to accept the evil choice, has denied the one and only God and his Christ and borne testimony to demons or goddesses of fortune, then this person must realize that in doing this he is "setting," as it were, "a table for the demon and offering libations" to Fortune, "forsaking the Lord" and "forgetting his holy mount." He will incur the reproaches written in Isaiah.

And you, that have forsaken. Here he separates the wicked from the consolation of the good, because of their sins of omission. And first, he threatens punishment for the wicked; second, he promises rewards for the good: because the former distresses are forgotten (Isa 65:16). Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he threatens them because they have abandoned God, and he sets out their fault: and you, Jews; that set for fortune, a god of the Egyptians, a table: he touches upon a ritual in which this god was worshipped, for, at the end of the year, a table was prepared for him, crammed with every food: they forsook God who made them, and departed from God their savior (Deut 32:15).

Because I called, and you did not answer; I spoke, and you did not hear: but you did evil in my eyes, and what I did not will, you chose. LXX: Because I called you, and you did not hear: I spoke, and you despised, and you did evil in my sight, and what I did not will you chose. You have been handed over to the sword, he says, because you have not only forsaken me and forgotten me and mixed a cup for fortune, but when I was Emmanuel, that is, God with us, of whom John too writes: The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14), I called you, present among you: Return to me, returning sons (Jer 3:14). And: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened (Matt 11:28); and you would not answer. I spoke in parables, and did all that I ought to do, and you did not hear me, nay, you even despised me. For I am he who said above as well: I came, and there was no man: I called, and there was none to obey (Isa 50:2). Nor was this impiety enough for you, to despise me when I was present, and to kill the heir sent to you; but you did evil in my sight, and chose what I did not will, and blasphemed the Son of God, so as to ask for yourselves Barabbas the robber, the author of murder and sedition; and you still dare to say: Why have you made us err from your way (Isa 63:17)? For if those who did not know me found me, and those who did not call upon me received me, what torments are you worthy of, who would not receive him who was sent to you and said: I have not come except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matt 15:24), but on top of that fastened him to the cross? We must consider what is meant by what he says: And what I did not will you chose; or what the will of the Son of God is, who says in the Gospel: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven: but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matt 7:21). Of which God himself also says: I have willed to do your will (Ps 39 [40]:9). This is the will of which the Lord himself was speaking: I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my wills (Acts 13:22). Hence the saint too prays and says: Teach me to do your will, for you are my God (Ps 142 [143]:10). For all things are lawful, but not all things are expedient. And concerning virgins the Apostle relates that he has no command of the Lord, yet he wishes us to be as he himself is (1 Cor 6). By this he shows that it is by no means the indulgence of the master that is to be followed, but his will (1 Cor 7); and that we ought to choose the things that are expedient, not those that are lawful, as is that concerning second marriage: I wish the younger women to marry, to bear children, to be mothers of families (1 Tim 5:14). And he gives the reasons why he allows this: For already some have turned aside after Satan. Therefore second marriage is not his pure will, since it is cheapened by the comparison with fornication.

And he sets out the punishment: I will number you in the sword, as if to say: so that none remain who will not be crushed: they shall fall by the sword, and by the famine (Jer 44:12). Second, because they did not obey when they were called back, and he sets out the fault: because I called and you did not answer: I called, and you refused (Prov 1:24).

In all these things, whatever has been predicted only, not promised, pertains to the persons of the wicked. Nor should that which because of the merit of wickedness, severity threatens to be inflicted, be said to have been promised by the generosity of goodness. If there are things that pertain to the persons of those who serve God, these have been both predicted and promised.This is also the point of the words of our Savior where he says, "And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." He predicted and promised the reward that the just would enjoy, but he did not promise but predicted the torments with which the unjust would be punished. Not so he predestined the saints to receive justice, because the "merciful and just Lord" could freely deliver from depravity whomever he wished. But he was never the doer of the depravity, because no one was ever depraved except insofar as he went away from God. Nor did God predestine anyone to go away, even though by divine knowledge he foreknew that he would go away.

Therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, and you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall rejoice, and you shall be put to shame. Behold, my servants shall give praise for exultation of heart, and you shall cry out for sorrow of heart, and for contrition of spirit you shall howl. LXX: Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, my servants shall eat, but you shall be hungry. Behold, my servants shall drink, but you shall be thirsty. Behold, my servants shall be glad, but you shall be put to shame. Behold, my servants shall exult in joy, but you shall cry out because of the sorrow of your heart, and because of the contrition of your spirit you shall howl. Not only shall you fall by the sword, you who have forsaken the Lord and done evil in his sight and would not hear him when he was present, but you shall see a great difference between yourselves and the multitude of the nations. For those who will be my servants shall eat and drink, they shall rejoice and give praise for exultation of heart. But you, on the contrary, shall be hungry and thirsty, you shall be put to shame, and for sorrow of heart and contrition of spirit you shall howl. All these things the χιλιασταὶ think are to be fulfilled in the thousand years, believing food and drink to be the kingdom of God, and not understanding what is written: Labor not for the food that perishes, but for the bread of life and truth (John 6:27), and desiring to eat the flesh of Christ and the fruit of the tree of life. Of this the Savior speaks: I am the bread that came down from heaven (John 6:33). And Ecclesiastes: Open your eyes, and be filled with loaves (Prov 20:13). And the Psalmist: I was young, he says, and have not grown old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread. All the day he is merciful and lends, and his seed shall be for a blessing (Ps 36 [37]:25). Of this bread and spiritual banquet he instructed the disciples: You who have continued with me in my trials shall eat at the table of my Father in the kingdom of heaven (Luke 22:28). But if we take it of simple bread, how shall we be able to explain this: The Lord will not kill the righteous soul with hunger (Prov 10:3). And again: The Lord knows the ways of the spotless, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be put to shame in the evil time, and in the days of famine they shall be filled (Ps 36 [37]:18, 19). For how many saints die in persecution, worn out by hunger and want; how many righteous men are hungry, while the wicked are distended with surfeit! But the drink is to be taken as that which is drawn from the fountains of Israel; whoever drinks of it will have in himself a fountain of water springing up into eternal life (John 4; Luke 22). This the Savior too promises that he will drink with the Apostles in the kingdom of the Father: it gladdens the heart of man (Ps 103 [104]:14), so that those who drink can say: You have put gladness in my heart (Ps 4:7). Of this food and drink it is said among the eight beatitudes: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matt 5:6). And the mother of the Lord, full of the Holy Spirit, prophesied: He has filled the hungry with good things (Luke 1:53), those who before did not have the food of the Lord: and the rich he has sent away empty, those who were given for his burial, and who spat out him whom the Prophets had promised. Of these the Psalmist sings in another place too: The rich have been in want, and have hungered (Ps 33 [34]:11), that is, the people of the Jews. But those who seek the Lord, that is, the crowd of the Gentiles, shall not lack any good thing. And when those who serve Christ and believe in him have rejoiced and praised God for exultation and joy of heart, then those others will be put to shame, seeing others succeed to their place; and they will cry out for sorrow of heart, fulfilling what is written: There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 13:50): when the lambs of the nations and of the righteous stand at the right hand, and the goats of the Jews and of the wicked on the left: the one receiving eternal rewards, the other eternal punishments.

And he threatens the punishment of separation. First, in satisfaction of the body: therefore thus says the Lord God: behold my servants shall eat, and you shall be hungry: the rich have wanted, and have suffered hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not be deprived of any good (Ps 33:11[34:10]).

And the contrition of spirit for sorrow of heart is to be understood of the conscience of sins, according to what is written: Those who err in spirit shall know understanding (Isa 29:24). And: A contrite and humbled heart, O God, you will not despise (Ps 50 [51]:19). The spirit is crushed when it has been lifted up; as is written of a king hostile to Israel: The Lord hardened his spirit (2 Kgs 17:14). And of the prince of the Babylonians, when his heart was lifted up and his spirit hardened, so that he said in his pride: This is Babylon, and I have made it (Dan 4:27).

Second, in joy of heart: behold my servants shall rejoice, and you shall be confounded: repenting, and groaning for anguish of spirit (Wis 5:3).

All things have been made new in Christ—worship and life and the making of laws. For we no longer adhere to shadows and ineffective types, but rather we offer adoration and worship, in spirit and truth, to the God who is above all. We do not take our name like the physical descendants of Israel from one of the first ancestors or fathers, such as Ephraim, or Manasseh, or some other tribe; nor do we follow the path of the scribes and the Pharisees, who value the antiquity of the letter above all else; but we submit to Christ in the newness of the life of the gospel, and having been given his name, like a crown, we are called Christians. This celebrated and blessed name has spread throughout the world. And because we have been blessed by Christ, we, in turn, try to make him rejoice with blessings and ceaseless praises.

With the ungrudging generosity of his godhead, Christ has granted to all of us to bear his name. For whereas as human sovereigns have some special title of sovereignty that they keep exclusively from use by other people, Jesus Christ, being Son of God, has deigned to bestow on us the title of Christians.… But some will say, "The name of 'Christians' is new and was not previously in use": and new-fashioned phrases are often objected to on the score of strangeness. The prophet made this point safe beforehand, saying, "But on my servants shall a new name be called, which shall be blessed upon the earth."

But even if we are clearly something new, and this truly recent name of Christians has only recently been known among all the nations, our life and manner of conduct in accordance with the very teachings of our religion have not been recently fashioned by us, but, as it were, from the first creation of humanity have been established by the natural concepts of the God-favored people of old.… And by deeds more manifest than words is Abraham's manner of religion shown to be practiced at present among Christians alone.

And you shall leave your name for an oath to my elect, and the Lord God shall slay you, and he shall call his servants by another name, in which he who is blessed upon the earth shall be blessed in God, amen: and he who swears in the earth shall swear in God, amen. LXX: For you shall leave your name for satiety to my elect. But you the Lord shall slay: and to those who serve me a new name shall be called, which shall be blessed upon the earth: for they shall bless the true God, and those who swear upon the earth shall swear by the true God. For satiety, which in Hebrew is called SABAA (שבועה), the others translated oath; this word has many meanings and varies with the difference of accents. For it is understood as oath, and fullness, and satiety, and many, and seven. Of this we spoke in the book on Genesis, and in this volume (cf. Isa 4), where seven women took hold of one man. Again, where the Seventy translated true, and in the Hebrew it is said AMEN (אמן), Aquila rendered πεπιστωμένως, that is, faithfully. And what he says is this: when others have succeeded to your place, your name will be an oath for my elect, so that they may hold you up as an example of evils and abhor suffering such things, and swear thus: may I not suffer these things which the people of the Jews suffered. Or your name will be for satiety: which is usually said of those whose recollection and memory is hateful, and who have come to the point of satiety and nausea. Or certainly it must be said that they leave their name to the elect of the Lord, so that the crowd of the nations may succeed in their place, and be called sons of Abraham and Israel. Of whom Paul speaks: Peace upon them, and upon the Israel of God (Gal 6:16). For not all who are of the Israelites are Israel, nor are all who are the seed of Abraham sons (Rom 9:7); to whom it is said: If you were sons of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham (John 8:39). And because they are the seed of Abraham and not sons, of which difference we spoke above, John the Baptist therefore rebukes them, saying: And do not presume to say, We have Abraham as our father: for God is able from these stones to raise up sons to Abraham (Matt 3:9). For how can they be his sons who have said to wood and stone, You have begotten me, since, on the contrary, those who are of faith are called sons of Abraham? But you, he says, the Lord shall slay, so that you are by no means called the circumcision, but the concision (Phil 3); so that you lack eternal life, so that you do not have him who says: I am the life (John 14:6). But his servants, he says, he will call by another name, or a new one, which will be celebrated in the whole world. And it will be blessed: so much so that he who has been called by that name is blessed in the Lord, and receives the seal of the true Circumcision, amen: which the Lord often uses in the Gospel to approve what has been said: Amen, amen I say to you (John 5:19). But the new or other name is none other than that which is derived from the name of Christ, so that the people of God is by no means called Jacob, and Judah, and Israel, and Ephraim, and Joseph, but Christian. For whoever swears in the earth will by no means swear by idols and false gods, but by God: and this sentence again is confirmed by the seal of amen. Further, according to the Seventy, who for amen rendered the true God, so that the true God is blessed, and those who swear upon the earth swear by the true God: we do not, according to the error of the Arians, refer this only to the person of God the Father, of whom it is written: That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3), but to the Son, who is himself also true God, as the evangelist John says: The Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, that we may know the true one, and may be in his true Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20). This is the true God and eternal life. For if the Savior says of himself: I am the truth (John 14:6), consequently the true God received his name from truth, so that he is by no means called God after the manner of false gods, but after the manner of the true God the Father, and is himself true God. Otherwise, if he is not true, he will be like an idol, which recoils upon the heads of those who deny that Christ is true God. And this is the new name which is written for him on the pebble in the Apocalypse (Chapter 2), which is blessed in the whole world.

These things are predicted to warn those not fearing the Lord and who do not turn to him, whereas those who serve me will not only weave another kind of outcome, but just as with the patriarchs, they will receive a name and on account of their deeds new names. When the Jews were unrepentant, this name was given to the Gentiles, a name that will stand forever, that is, the name of Christians. They no longer glorify idols, singing hymns to them as if to gods. Now they sing to God, their creator. They worship him and enjoy his blessings.

He has already mentioned this name. It is new and not old. For after the appearance of Christ the master, those who believed were called Christians. They bore this in place of all approving words. When one wished to praise, they were accustomed to add after many kind words, "He is a true Christian." And when on another occasion exhorting someone, they were accustomed to say, "Act as a Christian, do what befits a Christian." So this name is full of eulogy and blessing.

Third, in difference of name, and first, he sets out the sort of name the impious shall have: and you shall leave your name for an oath to my elect, that they might confirm their words thus: if it is not so, so shall it happen to me as happened to them: by the sword, and by the famine shall they die: and they shall be for an oath, and for a wonder, and for a curse, and for a reproach (Jer 44:12). And next he sets out the sort of name the good shall have: and call his servants; in which, namely, in which name, the name is Jesus; amen, faithfully, above: you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name (Isa 62:2).

For the former distresses have been given over to oblivion, and because they are hidden from my eyes. For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be in memory: and it shall not come up upon the heart: but you shall rejoice and exult forever in the things that I create. LXX: For they shall forget the former tribulation, and it shall not come up upon their heart. For there shall be a new heaven and a new earth: and they shall not remember the former things, and they shall not come upon their heart; but they shall find joy and exultation in it. The cause of the gladness and of the confession of the true God is that an eternal oblivion of the former distresses will follow, so that they will by no means remember the idols and their ancient error, but will pass from darkness to light, so as to enjoy eternal blessedness. For they will forget their former evils, not by a forgetting of memory, but by the succession of good things, according to what is written: In a good day there is forgetfulness of evils (Sir 11:27). And elsewhere: The affliction of an hour brings forgetfulness of delights (ibid. 29): because those placed in distress by no means enjoy in their minds, according to the error of Epicurus, their former pleasures. Though this too may be said: that in the new heaven and in the new earth all memory of the former way of life will be blotted out, lest this very thing be a part of evils, to remember the former distress.

Because the former distresses are forgotten. Here he promises rewards seen. And first, in general, as to the removal of evils: because the former distresses are forgotten, not because of lack of knowledge, but because they have been succeeded by good things, above: you shall forget the shame of your youth (Isa 54:4).

"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth." These words point to the church, referring to the heavenly and spiritual gifts that have been granted to it. Indeed, if the Lord took care of the Israelites for the earthly things promised to them, how much more will he provide for the church, thanks to the joy that peoples have experienced in their conversion to it. Therefore, he also calls new heavens and new earth the new and spiritual life granted to the church by the advent of Christ.

Now the new heaven and the new earth those who think that all things we see will perish interpret by the testimony of the Gospel: Heaven and earth shall pass away (Matt 24:35). And by that of the apostle Paul: For the things that are seen are temporal: but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor 4:18). But those who consider newness to be a change for the better, and not the destruction of the elements, use this example: In the beginning, O Lord, you founded the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands. They shall perish, but you remain, and they shall all grow old like a garment, and like a cloak you shall roll them up, and they shall be changed (Ps 101 [102]:26, 27). In this it is clearly shown that perdition and destruction mean not an abolition into nothing, but a change for the better. For neither does what is written in another place: The moon shall shine like the sun, and the sun shall receive sevenfold light (Isa 30:26), signify the destruction of the former things, but a change for the better. That this may be understood, let us set down examples from our own condition: when an infant has grown into a boy, and a boy into a youth, and a youth into a man, and a man into an old man, he by no means perishes through the several ages. For he is the same who was before; but he is changed little by little, and is said to have perished to his former age. Understanding this, the apostle Paul too said: For the fashion of this world passes away (1 Cor 7:31). Let us consider what he said: the fashion passes away, not the substance. Peter too signifies the same thing: This escapes them, willingly: that the heavens were from the beginning, and the earth out of water and through water subsists by the word of God; through which the former world, flooded by the deluge, perished. But the heavens and earth which are now are by the same principle kept for fire (2 Pet 3:5ff.); in what sense this is to be taken, he teaches afterwards: But we see new heavens and a new earth, and his promise (ibid. 13): he did not say, we shall see other heavens and another earth, but the old and ancient ones changed for the better. We can also say this: that those converted from idolatry, having deserted their ancient error, see new heavens and a new earth, by no means reckoning the elements to be gods, nor the things that are born of the earth. Now we confess that heaven and earth are the works of the hands of God: but at that time we venerated servants and the creature with the homage due to God; and David, perceiving this, sings in the psalm: I shall see the heavens, the works of your fingers (Ps 8:4): not that at that time, when he said this, he did not see the heavens; but that through the several increases of virtues, and the knowledge of things to come, he sees as new those which he already saw as old. And what is said at the end of this testimony: Which I create, was omitted by the Seventy.

The eighteenth book on Isaiah, or rather the last, is dedicated to your name, O daughter Eustochium, and to that of your holy mother Paula, so that I may now recall with equal remembrance those whom I have looked up to with equal honor: especially since she too, while she lived, often asked for this work together with you, and your brother Pammachius, a most learned man, did not cease, both then and afterwards, to press me with frequent letters; and for me there is one and the same devotion toward friends present and absent, and toward men and women sleeping in Christ, that is, a love of souls, not of bodies. Nor am I unaware how great a diversity of opinions there is among men. I do not speak of the mystery of the Trinity, whose right confession is the ignorance of knowledge, but of the other doctrines of the Church: namely of the Resurrection, of the state of souls and of human flesh, of the Promises of things to come, how they ought to be taken, and in what way the Apocalypse of John is to be understood; for if we take it according to the letter, we must judaize; if we discuss it spiritually, as it was written, we shall seem to go against the opinions of many of the ancients: of the Latins, Tertullian, Victorinus, Lactantius; of the Greeks, to pass over the rest, I shall mention only Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, against whom Dionysius, a most eloquent man, bishop of the Church of Alexandria, writes an elegant book, mocking the fable of the thousand years, and the golden and jeweled Jerusalem on earth, the restoration of the Temple, the blood of victims, the idleness of the sabbath, the outrage of circumcision, marriages, childbirths, the rearing of children, the delights of banquets, and the servitude of all the nations; and again wars, armies and triumphs, and the slaughter of the vanquished, and the death of the sinner a hundred years old. To him Apollinaris replied in two volumes, and not only the men of his own sect but also a very great multitude of ours follow him, in this part at least, so that with a foreboding mind I already see how many people's rage is to be stirred up against me. I do not begrudge them, if they love the earth so much that in the kingdom of Christ they desire earthly things, and after an abundance of food and the gorging of gullet and belly, seek the things that are beneath the belly. Of whom the apostle Paul says: Food, he says, for the belly, and the belly for foods: but God will destroy both it and them (1 Cor 6:13). And: The kingdom of God is not food and drink (Rom 14:17). And the Lord and Savior: You err, he says, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, but they will be like the Angels (Matt 22:29, 30). Nor in saying this do I take away the reality of bodies, which I confess will rise incorrupt and immortal, so that they change their glory, not their substance. And so we must walk on the straight path, so as to turn aside neither to the left nor to the right, that is, so as to follow neither the Jewish error nor the heretical. Of these, the one sort, who are of the flesh, love flesh alone; the other, ungrateful for the benefits of God, refuse to have what Christ had both when he was born and when he rose. For when the Apostles thought him a spirit, or, according to the Gospel of the Hebrews which the Nazarenes read, an incorporeal demon, he said to them: Why are you troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? See my hands and feet, that it is I myself: Handle and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet (Luke 24:38, 39). And again he spoke to Thomas when he doubted: Put your finger here, and see my hands; and stretch out your hand, and put it into my side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing (John 20:27). Finally, to prove the reality of his body, he is written to have taken food, as he had also ordered food to be given to the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue, whom he raised from the dead. And Lazarus, lest his resurrection be thought a phantom, is related to have sat at a banquet with the Savior (Mark 5; and Luke 13; John 12). Not that after the resurrection we shall eat and drink, as our Millenarians would have it, and that immortal and incorrupt bodies must be sustained by earthly nourishment: otherwise, where there is food, diseases follow; where there are diseases, a physician must be called in; where there are physicians, death often follows; and then again a resurrection, and a new way of life all over again; but so that the taking of food might prove the faith of the resurrection. These things we guard against with great care, and we speak with restraint, knowing that we must walk among serpents and scorpions, which bite and strike in secret (Ezek 2). Of whom Ecclesiastes too says: If a serpent, he says, bites in silence, he who disparages in secret has nothing less than it (Eccl 10:11); and his father David: Sitting, you spoke against your brother, and against your mother's son you laid a stumbling block. These things you did, and I was silent: you thought, wicked one, that I shall be like you. I will rebuke you, and set it before your face (Ps 49 [50]:20, 21); so that you may be shown to have yourself what you charge against others. But if the length of my explanations on the Prophets displeases anyone, let him hear plainly that I have said far less than the obscurity of the matter demands, and that anyone can make brief little commentaries for himself out of our fullness, which nevertheless will not suffice for a full understanding. For the Prophets do not narrate a simple history and the order of events; but all things are full of riddles, and one thing sounds in the words, another is held in the sense: so that the things you would have reckoned plain, and running on in an unhindered reading, are wrapped again in the obscurities of what follows. But it is time for me to put an end to the prophetic volume, in whose exposition, if I am longer than usual, allowance must be made for its final parts, which I did not wish to divide, lest the number of books be increased.

Isaiah also, declaring prophetically that there will be a new heaven and a new earth, undoubtedly suggests a similar view. For this renewal of heaven and earth, and this transformation of the form of the present world and this changing of the heavens will undoubtedly be prepared for those who are walking along and are tending to that goal of happiness to which, it is said, even enemies themselves are to be subjected and in which God is said to be "all in all." And if anyone imagines that at the end, material, that is, bodily nature will be entirely destroyed, he cannot in any respect meet my view, how beings so numerous and powerful are able to live and to exist without bodies, since it is an attribute of the divine nature alone.… Another, perhaps, may say that in the end every bodily substance will be so pure and refined as to be like the ether and of a celestial purity and clearness. How things will be, however, is known with certainty to God alone and to those who are his friends through Christ and the Holy Spirit.

And as to the restoration of goods: for behold I create new heavens, new help from heaven, and a new earth, new benefits from the earth; or this refers to the day of judgment, when the world will be renewed to the glory of the saints: the former things are passed away (Rev 21:4).

Instead of the former affliction, the prophet says, "they shall find in her joy and exultation." To what does "in her" refer? Without a doubt it can be said that it refers to the church of Christ. It must be noted that some commentators refer this passage not to the period of our earthly life but to the one that is to come after this present age. For the prophet says that the just will find joy and gladness and will enjoy endless delight, that is, spiritual delight, when this creation had been transformed and renewed. For one of the holy apostles said: "The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up. But according to his promise we wait for new heaven and a new earth." Choose, therefore, whichever of these interpretations appeals to you, the former or the latter. For one should not reject what brings benefit to us.

For behold, I create Jerusalem an exultation, and its people a joy: and I will exult in Jerusalem, and rejoice in my people. LXX: For behold, I make Jerusalem an exultation, and my people a gladness, and I will exult over Jerusalem, and be glad over my people. You ought, he says, to rejoice and exult with everlasting gladness in the creation of new heavens and a new earth, and not to remember the former things at all, lest any sadness should arise in you from the recollection of the old: for I will create not only new heavens and a new earth, but Jerusalem too in exultation, and its people in joy. Without doubt it will be a gladness for the whole earth, so that the city which, when old, was the joy of one nation, when new may be the gladness of all the nations. And so great will be the exultation and gladness of all over the city and people of God, that I too, its founder, will exult and rejoice over Jerusalem and over my people, who shall eat and drink and be glad and exult in it, and who have been called by the new name.

Second, in particular: for behold I create Jerusalem. And first, as to cheerfulness of heart: Jerusalem, earthly Jerusalem, but more, the heavenly Jerusalem; rejoicing, emphatically, so that all things are absorbed in joy, above: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourning shall flee away (Isa 35:10).

And there shall no more be heard in it the voice of weeping, and the voice of crying: there shall no longer be an infant of days, and an old man who does not fill out his days. For the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. LXX: And there shall no more be heard in it the voice of weeping, and the voice of crying: nor shall there be there any more one untimely and an old man who does not fill out his time. For there shall be an infant a hundred years old, and he who dies a sinner at a hundred shall be accursed. For it will not be fitting that in the city of Jerusalem and in the people of God, which will receive the eternal creation of exultation and joy, the voice of weeping and crying should be heard any more, when sorrow, mourning and groaning have gone away. For contraries cannot exist together. And where there is exultation and joy, which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, there weeping and lamentation cannot abide, which befits those who mourn and grieve, and above all crying, which Paul expels from the Church of believers, lest, like the Jews, we make a crying instead of judgment (Eph 4).

It is usual for the prophets thus to mingle metaphorical and literal expressions. Yet, anyone with serious purpose and a little useful and salutary effort can discern the prophet's spiritual sense; it is only a lazy and worldly person or one who is ignorant or uneducated who will rest content with the literal and superficial sense and refuse to penetrate the deeper meaning.

The second aspect of the zeal of wisdom is control of the passions, which are the seven affective dispositions of the soul — four principal and three consequent: fear, sorrow, hope and joy; shame and hatred. It is characteristic of these that they go to excess in all matters. But when a child clamors too loudly, he is restrained. Likewise, a man should dominate and restrain these passions with a kind of judicial censure, so that when sorrow comes, he say to himself, "Remain in peace." And the same with the others. And get rid of this childishness and of these infantile dispositions. For children are the pursuers of passions: accursed is the child who is a hundred years old.

"For the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed." Some authors understand these words as referring to the time after the return from exile. For a hundred years their prosperity lasted, and then the Macedonian kings rose against them. This is clearly explained in the book of the Maccabees.

In such a city there will not be different ages: an infant and an old man, small and great, who does not fill out his days; but as sons of the resurrection all will come to the perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ, so that no one will lack a span of years nor have more than enough, nor will it be that, while one does not yet have firm strength, another ceases to be what he was and withers in decrepit age; and all will come to the number of a hundred, as Abraham was, who at this age received the promise of his son Isaac (Gen 21). Of the praises of this number there is no need to say much, lest the discussion be superfluous. This only we say: that ten decades have equal sides, and possess the firmness of a square form. In the promises too, for the things we have spent, the Lord promises us them multiplied a hundredfold; and the seed falling on good ground has as its first number of most abundant yield the hundred. Finally Isaac too, sowing one seed of faith, received the works of his labor multiplied by this number. At that time, then, when all will be of one age, both the saint and the sinner will be perfected by a like resurrection, nor will they differ from one another in time; but one will be drawn to rewards, the other to punishments: and the sinner will be accursed in this, that he will suffer eternal punishments in an incorrupt body. That too which we read in the Apocalypse of John (Chapter 20), that after the resurrection small and great are brought into the presence of the judge, signifies differences not of ages but of merits. For he who is small, according to the sentence of Solomon, is worthy of mercy: but the mighty shall mightily suffer torments (Wis 6:7). With this sense the words of the Lord also agree: The servant who knows the will of his lord and does not do it shall be beaten with many stripes (Luke 12:47). But he who does not know, and has done things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. The blessed apostle Paul, with Christ speaking in him, expounding the old Scripture, declares the patriarch Abraham to be the father not only of the circumcision but of the uncircumcision (Rom 4), that is, that two peoples were begotten from him; and that the one which had been born according to the flesh, a hundred years old, lies under a perpetual curse because of Christ, who was born of the stock of Abraham, and on whom it laid hands. The Gospels teach this figure (Mark 5), in which it is related that the woman with the issue of blood began to be ill at the time when the daughter of the ruler of the synagogue was born, and that when the one was healed the other at once died, within one and the same span of years: that the new people persists in youth, and the old dies in unbelief and is accursed. This we have said according to the Seventy translators, whose edition is spread through the whole world, lest in a most famous passage we should seem to take refuge in the citadel of the Hebrew language. Whether you understand this after the resurrection at the second coming of the Savior, or believe it after baptism in the first resurrection, it is not at odds with the faith of the Church. The Hebrews contend that these things will come to pass before the resurrection in a kingdom of a thousand years upon the earth, and that so long a span of future life is promised that a hundred years are counted as infancy; but that the sinner will die in the hundredth year of his age: namely, so that he may not enjoy the wealth he has gathered, but may know that he is accursed because of his sin. But if it is so, where will be the perfect blessedness, which is violated and corrupted by sin, and where sin is punished by an untimely death?

"The young" means the people from among the Gentiles … and all will be mature, having grown into the measure of the fullness of Christ.

Long age will be given generously to them with nobody who died an untimely death … for he who has reached one hundred years will be just as the one who has died prematurely as a youth. But the sinner will be prone to judgment for his whole life and crosses into the lot of the cursed.

The heaven became new and the earth new for those who once erred and divinized these things. For they recognize the Creator of these things and learn that the things are not gods but the creations of God. They are new for those who see things completely differently. Now that their error has ceased, creation appears clearly as creation and Creator as Creator.

Second, as to length of life: there shall no more be an infant of days there, nor an old man that shall not fill up his days, dying before his time, but the child shall die a hundred years old, that is, when he will have reached such an age; and, if he be a sinner, although he will have lived to such an age, he shall be subject to a curse: Abraham died in a good old age (Gen 25:8). Mystically, in the heavenly Jerusalem, all will fill up their days, for none will die; the child shall die a hundred years old, that is, he who lived to old age childishly shall die, in eternal death: for venerable old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years (Wis 4:8).

And they shall build houses, and dwell in them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat their fruits. They shall not build, and another dwell: they shall not plant, and another eat. LXX likewise. Of these houses the prophetic word also makes promise in Psalm 68 (69), saying: For God will save Zion: and the cities of Judah shall be built, and they shall dwell there, and acquire it by inheritance, and the seed of his servants shall possess it: and those who love his name shall dwell in it. All this the Jews take carnally, that Jerusalem and the cities of Judea are to be restored to their former state. But if we grant them this, let them hear that this is promised not only to Jerusalem but also to Sodom, as Ezekiel says: Sodom shall be restored to its ancient state (Ezek 16:55). Therefore the houses in which those who build them are to dwell are to be understood either as the Virtues or as the various mansions with the Father, which he who has built them will possess forever. Such houses the midwives too, who feared God, are said in Exodus to have built for themselves: although it is written in the Hebrew that houses were built for them by God, because they feared him (Exod 1). And Jacob, because he was simple, or, as it is said in Greek, ἄπλαστος, that is, by no means feigned, and not such as those who are condemned in the Epistle of Peter, of whom he says: In covetousness they make merchandise of you with feigned words (2 Pet 2:3), therefore dwelt in a house which Esau, who delighted in wild beasts and forests, could not possess. Such a house the words of the Savior in the Gospel also describe: Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words, and does them, will be like a prudent man who built his house upon the rock (Matt 7:24), and the rest. Otherwise, according to the letter, many saints build houses and do not dwell in them, being taken away by travel abroad, or by another's plunder, or by death. Such was Job, who, rich in flesh and spirit, was brought down to such poverty that he sat on a dunghill outside the gate of the city (Job 2). On the contrary, that rich man in the Gospel, clothed in purple, built a house and dwelt in it, to whom it could most rightly be said: Fool, this night your soul shall be taken from you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be (Luke 12:20)? And he says not only, They shall build houses and dwell in them, but also, They shall plant vineyards, and they themselves shall eat their fruit. According to what is said in Micah: Each shall rest under his vine and under his fig tree; and there shall be none to terrify him (Mic 4:4). This is the vine that spoke in the Gospel: I am the vine, and you are the branches, and my Father is the husbandman (John 15:5). Every one that does not bear fruit shall be cut down, and cast into the fire (Matt 3:10). Its fruits are eaten and drunk, and gladden the heart of man, and inebriate the friends of the bridegroom, and are drunk daily in the kingdom of God. And he rests under the fig tree, and fears no one's snares, who enjoys the sweetness of the Holy Spirit and is filled with his fruits: love, joy, peace, faith, continence, patience. Of a planter of this kind it is said: He who plants a fig tree shall eat its fruits (Amos 9:14). He who has built such houses and planted such vineyards, of which the Apostle too speaks: I planted, Apollos watered, God gave the increase (1 Cor 3:6), shall eat the labors of his hands (Ps 127 [128]); and sowing in the spirit, from the spirit he shall reap eternal life (Gal 6): nor shall he be supplanted by the frauds of the devil and his henchmen.

Third, as to prosperity of goods, both as to security of their possessions: and they shall build: and they shall build houses (Ezek 28:26); they shall plant vineyards (Amos 9:14).

"As in the days of the tree of life, so shall be the days of my people." Now, anyone who has ever opened the Scriptures knows where God planted the "tree of life." It was from the fruit of this tree that God excluded Adam and Eve.…Of course, it might be argued that those "days of the tree of life" mentioned by Isaiah are the days that are now being spent by Christ's church, since the "tree of life" is simply a prophetic figure for Christ, for that Wisdom of God that Solomon had in mind when he said that Wisdom is "a tree of life to them that laid hold on it."

For as the days of the tree, so shall be the days of my people, and the works of their hands shall wear out for my elect. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth in trouble: for it is the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their grandchildren with them. And it shall be that before they cry out, I will hear: while they are still speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion and the ox shall eat straw, and for the serpent dust shall be its bread. They shall not harm nor kill in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. LXX: For as the days of the tree of life, so the days of my people: the works of their labors my elect shall make old: they shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth sons for a curse: for it is a seed blessed by the Lord, and their grandchildren with them. And it shall be that before they cry out, I will hear them: while they are still speaking I will say, What is it? Then wolves and lambs shall feed together: and the lion like the ox shall eat straw, and the serpent earth as bread. They shall not harm nor destroy in my holy mountain, says the Lord. Eternal will be the dwelling and the planting of the righteous, so that the days of the life of my people are compared to the days of the life of the tree, of which it is said in the Psalms: The righteous shall flourish like the palm (Ps 91 [92]:13), daily triumphing over his adversaries and bearing before him the token of victory. But if we read according to the Seventy, who rendered the sense from the Hebrew rather than the words, the days of the tree of life, we understand the tree of life which is set in paradise. Lest Adam should stretch out his hand to it and live, he was cast out of paradise (Gen 3). To guard it were set the Cherubim, that is, a multitude of knowledge, and a fiery sword, to keep the way of the tree of life, lest Adam, placed in sin and not yet acknowledging his offenses, should eat of it and die the death of impenitence, despair and pride. What this tree of life is, Solomon explains more plainly, who, discoursing of the wisdom of God, says: It is a tree of life to all who come to it, and for those who lean upon it, it is as firm as upon the Lord (Prov 3:18); nor is there doubt that it signifies the Word of God, who is himself the way and wisdom, and says of himself: I am the life (John 11:25). And of whom the Prophet sings: In wisdom you have made all things: the earth is filled with your creation (Ps 103 [104]:24); and the apostle Paul: Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24). The works of the people of God too shall not grow old, but shall be renewed daily, so that they walk not in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the spirit (Rom 7). So that, as through the disobedience of one man very many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one man many may be made righteous. Or certainly this must be said: that the works of those grow old whose house, founded upon the rock, abides forever, and who have built upon the foundation of Christ gold, silver, precious stones (1 Cor 3); and that, on the contrary, the works of those perish whose house, founded upon the sand, is overturned by a sudden storm, and who have built upon the foundation of Christ wood, hay, stubble. Or does it not seem to you that he makes his works old daily who, forgetting the things that are past, stretches forward to what is to come? Hence a Testament is called both old and new: not that the old perishes, but that no other succeeds the new. This too can be said according to the Hebrew: that the works of the people, and of those who believe in Christ, are the fruits of the Apostles, that is, of the elect of God, and are laid up in their treasuries. For many are called, and few are chosen (Matt 20).

For us the saving cross is the tree of life. For it received like fruit the life-giving body by which those who stretch out their hands and pick the fruit will live life eternally.

And he assigns the reason: for as the days of a tree, that is, because they will live a long time just as the wood of a tree lasts a long time, the works of their hands shall grow old, that is, they shall remain in their use until old age: he shall be like a tree which is planted near the running waters (Ps 1:3).

These shall not labor in vain, as the Jews once labored; but they shall eat the labors of their hands. Nor shall they bring forth in trouble, or for a curse, or, as is put more expressly in the Hebrew, εἰς ἀνυπαρξίαν, which in their language is said LABALA (לבהלה), that is, so that they cease to be and have an end of their substance: for which Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion translated haste: so that they may by no means hasten to believe without reason, but may imitate Nathanael, who was praised by the voice of the Lord: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile (John 1:47), who sought Christ by the authority of the Scriptures and longed to recognize him from the Prophets, saying: Can anything good come out of Nazareth? And the sense is: How do you bring me a Messiah from Galilee and Nazareth, whom I know to have been promised from Bethlehem of Judah? The Apostles, then, and apostolic men will so bring forth sons as to instruct them from the holy Scriptures, so that they do not imitate the curse of the Jews, but say with the Prophet: From your fear, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and have been in labor and have brought forth (Isa 26:18). For of these it had been said: Blessed is the offspring of your womb (Deut 28:4). Such are the sons of Abraham, who do his works: and in the old history they are called the sons of the Prophets (John 8): such too as the Apostles begot in the new Instrument (Acts 16): Paul begot Timothy, Luke and Titus and many others; Peter Mark the evangelist, and the rest others; whose seed is blessed and is blessed to this day, and the sons of sons remain. Of whom the Prophet says: Blessed is the man who fears the Lord; he will delight exceedingly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty on the earth; the generation of the upright shall be blessed (Ps 111 [112]:1, 2). And elsewhere: Your sons like young olive plants round about your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord (Ps 127 [128]:4, 5). On the contrary, of Judas the betrayer, and of all who are like him, it is said: Let his sons be orphans, and his wife a widow. Let his sons be shaken and carried off, and let them beg; let them be cast out of their houses (Ps 108 [109]:9, 10). For the end of an evil generation is very bad. They conceive sorrow and bring forth iniquity. Of whose prince it is written: Behold, he has travailed with injustice, he has conceived sorrow, and brought forth iniquity (Ps 7:15). But if this is said of the wicked, how is it that Samuel, a blessed and righteous man, begot very wicked sons, who did not walk in their father's way (1 Sam 8); and David, of whose seed Christ was born, begot two sons, Amnon and Absalom, of whom the one became the murderer of his brother, the other of his father (2 Sam 13, 15 and 16)? From all these things we learn that sons and grandchildren ought to be understood according to what we have said. According to which Paul too is in labor with sons until Christ be formed in them, and begets Onesimus in chains (Gal 4).

When God sees in us some beginnings of a good will, he at once enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on toward salvation, increasing that which he himself implanted or which he sees to have arisen from our own efforts. In his goodness, not only does he inspire us with holy desires, but actually creates occasions for life and opportunities for good results, and shows to those in error the way of salvation.

And as to the peace of their children: nor bring forth in trouble, as though bringing forth children into servitude to their enemies: good things continue with their seed (Sir 44:11).

The earth will freely give its produce, and all evil will be removed, just as Isaiah said … for God has refashioned such a world in his kingdom just as it had been made in the beginning before the first-made human being ruined it, who after he had disobeyed the word of God all things were spoiled and ruined and cursed by God's word: "the earth will be cursed in your works." The former shape of this world will become the kingdom of the saints and the liberation of the creatures.

When these cry out, they will at once be heard, and while they are speaking the Lord will say, Here I am. All of which we see fulfilled even according to the letter in the Acts of the Apostles. For all the nations could not have believed in so short a time unless their faith had in some way been wrung from them by the miracles of signs. For when the Apostles and apostolic men spoke and cried out, the Lord answered with the greatness of his signs, so that Dorcas rose at the prayers of Peter (Acts 9), so that the father of Publius, on the island of Malta, was healed by the prayers of Paul of fevers and dysentery, which are diseases contrary to each other, and so that the whole world said that they were gods walking among men (Acts 28).

This is a prediction Isaiah made previously after having announced the growth from the stem of Jesse. Now, we see the fulfillment of this prophecy as rulers and ruled, kings and servants, wise and foolish will share a common table—that is, the teaching of the Spirit. For he calls those who live in moderation lambs, whereas those with high ambitions are wolves. The lion is the one exalted to royal status, cattle are those worthy of the priesthood, and straw is the food of cattle. The lion will no longer be a carnivore but shall share the food of the cattle.

"And the serpent shall eat dust as bread." This is the food that the righteous Judge has assigned to it from the beginning: "On your breast and belly you shall go, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life." And so Isaiah calls the common enemy of humanity a serpent. He has subjected him to the ancient curse. This is similarly indicated in the passage that follows: "They shall not injure or destroy on my holy mountains, says the Lord." All strength had been removed from him, not only from the fact that he crept on the ground but also that the saints had trampled him under foot and the wood of the cross crushed him.

Fourth, as to the hearing of their prayers: and it shall come to pass, that before they call, with their mouth, above: at the voice of your cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer you (Isa 30:19).

The predicted blessing, therefore, belongs unquestionably to the times of the kingdom, when the righteous shall bear rule upon their rising from the dead; when also the creation, having been renovated and set free, shall fructify with an abundance of all kinds of food, from the dew of heaven, and from the fertility of the earth: as the elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to these times, and say: The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, "I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me." In like manner [the Lord declared] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear should have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds (quinque bilibres) of clear, pure, fine flour; and that all other fruit-bearing trees, and seeds and grass, would produce in similar proportions (secundum congruentiam iis consequentem); and that all animals feeding [only] on the productions of the earth, should [in those days] become peaceful and harmonious among each other, and be in perfect subjection to man.

And these things are borne witness to in writing by Papias, the hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp, in his fourth book; for there were five books compiled (συντεταγμένα) by him. And he says in addition, "Now these things are credible to believers." And he says that, "when the traitor Judas did not give credit to them, and put the question, 'How then can things about to bring forth so abundantly be wrought by the Lord.' the Lord declared, 'They who shall come to these [times] shall see.' " When prophesying of these times, therefore, Esaias says: "The wolf also shall feed with the lamb, and the leopard shall take his rest with the kid; the calf also, and the bull, and the lion shall eat together; and a little boy shall lead them. The ox and the bear shall feed together, and their young ones shall agree together; and the lion shall eat straw as well as the ox. And the infant boy shall thrust his hand into the asp's den, into the nest also of the adder's brood; and they shall do no harm, nor have power to hurt anything in my holy mountain." And again he says, in recapitulation, "Wolves and lambs shall then browse together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the serpent earth as if it were bread; and they shall neither hurt nor annoy anything in my holy mountain, says the Lord." [Isaiah 40:6, etc.] I am quite aware that some persons endeavour to refer these words to the case of savage men, both of different nations and various habits, who come to believe, and when they have believed, act in harmony with the righteous. But although this is [true] now with regard to some men coming from various nations to the harmony of the faith, nevertheless in the resurrection of the just [the words shall also apply] to those animals mentioned. For God is rich in all things. And it is right that when the creation is restored, all the animals should obey and be in subjection to man, and revert to the food originally given by God (for they had been originally subjected in obedience to Adam), that is, the productions of the earth. But some other occasion, and not the present, is [to be sought] for showing that the lion shall [then] feed on straw. And this indicates the large size and rich quality of the fruits. For if that animal, the lion, feeds upon straw [at that period], of what a quality must the wheat itself be whose straw shall serve as suitable food for lions?

Then the wolf and the lamb fed together, Paul the persecutor and Ananias the disciple (Acts 9). He is the wolf of whom it is written: Benjamin, a ravening wolf, in the morning shall eat the prey, and at evening shall give food (Gen 49:27); or, as it is said in the Hebrew, shall divide the spoils. His teaching was the food of believers, and he triumphed over his vanquished adversaries in the whole world. But the lambs are to be believed to be all who in white garments follow the Lamb wherever he goes (Rev 14), whom the Lord handed over to Peter to feed, saying: Feed my lambs (John 21:16). The lion too like the ox shall eat straw, when most eloquent men, once powerful in the world, give themselves over to the rusticity of the Scriptures, so that they by no means feed on worldly eloquence, which like honey drips from the lips of a harlot, but follow the plainness and the straw of the history, until by much labor and diligence they deserve to come to the grain of the senses. Of this straw and grain Jeremiah speaks: What has straw to do with wheat, says the Lord (Jer 23:28)? And it must be considered that it is not the ox that is turned to fury, but the lion that is changed to gentleness. The serpent too, which watched for the heel of man, and whose head was watched for by man, will by no means be nourished by the destruction of others, but will eat earth, or dust, as bread (Gen 3). Or certainly it is to be understood thus: that the devil, who formerly fed on the deaths of men, eats only those who are dust and earth: by all of which is shown the change of the wicked into good, who will be harmless, having laid aside their ancient ferocity: not outside, but in the holy mountain of the Lord, that is, in the Church, and in the confession of that mountain by which the prince of Tyre was wounded, and which, cut out of the mountain without hands, grew into a great mountain and filled the world (Dan 2). Let us in this place ask the Jews, and all who under the Christian name still eat the straw of the Scriptures, which, separated from the wheat by the winnowing fan of the Lord, will be given over to the wind and the flames, what blessedness is to be reckoned in this: that in a kingdom of a thousand years, on Mount Zion, in Jerusalem, the city of Christ then present, and in a most august Temple, wolves and lambs, lions and oxen, serpents and men should eat together and dwell alike? and that they should be harmless only to those who have dwelt in the holy mountain of the Lord? From which we understand that all who are outside the mountain are to be slain. So the whole world will be stripped of wolves, lions, bears, leopards and serpents and the other beasts; and the immense woodlands, and the vast waste of the Egyptian desert, which is fertile in venomous creatures; and, as the height of happiness, the holy city will be the dwelling place not only of men but of beasts and serpents, so that, according to the earlier prophecy, the wolf dwells with the lamb, and the leopard with the kid, the calf and the lion, and sheep stay together with bears (Isa 11); and a little child leads them, and an infant from the breast puts his hand into the hole of the asp, and kills the basilisk in its den. And the cause of so great a happiness is that the whole earth has been filled with the knowledge of the Lord.

The elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, related that they had heard from him how the Lord used to teach in regard to these times, and say: The days will come, in which vines shall grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in each one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give five and twenty metretes of wine. And when any one of the saints shall lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, "I am a better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me." In like manner [the Lord declared] that a grain of wheat would produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear should have ten thousand grains, and every grain would yield ten pounds (quinque bilibres) of clear, pure, fine flour; and that all other fruit-bearing trees, and seeds and grass, would produce in similar proportions (secundum congruentiam iis consequentem); and that all animals feeding [only] on the productions of the earth, should [in those days] become peaceful and harmonious among each other, and be in perfect subjection to man... Now these things are credible to believers... When the traitor Judas did not give credit to them, and put the question, 'How then can things about to bring forth so abundantly be wrought by the Lord.' the Lord declared, 'They who shall come to these [times] shall see.'

Fifth, as to the tranquility of peace: the wolf and the lamb, for those who formerly were tyrants and evildoers will abide peacefully with others, above (Isa 11:6) has the same.