Isaiah 66

Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as he had appointed, speaking unto Moses, that he should make it according to the fashion that he had seen. Which also our fathers that came after brought in with Jesus into the possession of the Gentiles, whom God drave out before the face of our fathers, unto the days of David; Who found favour before God, and desired to find a tabernacle for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built him an house. Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will ye build me? saith the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Hath not my hand made all these things? [Isaiah 66:1-2]

"Heaven is my throne, while the earth is my footstool." … Haven't you also read that other text, "Who measured the heaven with the palm of his hand?" … Whoever sat in the palm of his own hand?…Does the same heaven become wide when he is sitting in it and narrow when he is measuring it? Or is God the same size in his seat as he is in his palm? If that is the case, God did not make us in his own likeness, because we have palms that are much narrower than the part of the body we sit with. But if he is as broad in the palm as he is broad in the beam, then he made very unequal parts for us. No, that is not where the likeness lies. Such an idol should be ashamed of itself in a Christian mind. So then, take "heaven" as standing for all the saints, since earth too stands for all who are on the earth, "Let all the earth worship you."

In hesitation I turn to Christ, since I am herein seeking him; and I discover how the earth may be worshiped without impiety, how his footstool may be worshiped without impiety. For he took on himself earth from earth, and he received flesh from the flesh of Mary. And because he walked here in very flesh and gave that very flesh to us to eat for our salvation, and no one eats that flesh unless he has first worshiped, we have found out in what sense such a footstool of our Lord may be worshiped, and not only that we do not sin in worshiping it but that we sin in not worshiping.

He has not even built a house for himself! He has nothing to do with space. Even if it is written that "the heaven is his throne," he is not contained as the words suggest.

"And worship his footstool for it is holy." What is this footstool of Jesus that is holy? We read in another place: "The heavens are my throne, the earth is my footstool"; and here, "worship his footstool." If earth is Jesus' footstool, and the psalm says worship his footstool, then is earth to be adored? How, then, do we read in the apostle that we must worship the Creator, not the creature? In Scripture, adoration conveys two different notions: worship as an act toward God and worship in the sense of reverence. When we use the word worship in relation to God, we mean the adoration that is proper to God. When, however, we use the term with reference to a human being, as for example, Sarah worshiped Abraham and Elijah worshiped Ahab—a most ungodly king—it does not mean that Elijah worshiped Ahab as if he were God but that this worship was more like a greeting.Now, we are ready to examine the words "and worship his footstool," and [we will] see in which way the word worship is intended. Do we adore God's footstool just as we adore God or in the same sense that we worship and pay respect to a person? We have read in the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in another of the prophets, "How the Lord has hallowed his footstool!" In this passage, his footstool is Jerusalem, or the temple. And so, the reference is historical. We shall now consider the verse "and worship his footstool" from another point of view. If feet rest on a footstool, the words "Let us worship in the place where his feet have stood" likewise refer to a footstool. In that event, we may hold to the letter and mean, for example, that place where he was born, where he was crucified, where he arose from the dead. This is the explanation for beginners.… [Or] Jesus' footstool is the soul of the one who believes. Happy the person in whose heart Jesus sets his feet every day! If only he would set his feet in my heart! If only his footsteps would cling to my heart forever!

Thus says the Lord: Heaven is my seat, and earth the footstool of my feet. What is this house that you will build for me, and what is this place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and all these things have come to be, says the Lord. LXX likewise. Lest we should understand the holy mountain as Zion and be covered with the Jewish error, who think that Jerusalem is to be built up and that all the things the Lord promises are to be fulfilled there carnally, he takes this suspicion away from us, and sets down the testimony which Stephen, the first martyr in Christ, used against the contentiousness of the Jews (Acts 7). Solomon built him a house, without doubt for God; but the Most High does not dwell in things made with hands, as the Prophet says: Heaven is my throne: but earth is the footstool of my feet. And Paul in the same volume: God, who made the world and those who are in it, by no means dwells in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24). For if, like one sitting on a throne and reigning, heaven is his throne and earth the footstool of his feet, how shall he be shut up in a small place who fills all things, and in whom all things are? Hence Moses too: Do not say, he says, in your heart, He is far off: for God is in heaven above and upon the earth beneath: and there is no other God besides him (Deut 4:39). And the Psalmist: Where shall I go from your spirit, and where shall I flee from your face? If I go up into heaven, you are there: if I go down to hell, you are present (Ps 138 [139]:7). With him Jeremiah too agrees, speaking in the person of God: I am a God at hand, and not a God from afar. Can anyone hide in secret places, and I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth (Jer 23:23, 24)? For in him we all are and move (Acts 17). And he says this to refute the Jewish error, who think that the invisible, incorporeal and incomprehensible God can be shut up in the temple of Jerusalem. This indeed Solomon himself, the builder of the Temple, confesses at length in his prayer to the Lord (1 Kgs 8). And lest we think that the greatness of God is to be measured even by heaven and earth, we read of him in another place: Who holds heaven in his palm, and the earth in his fist (Isa 40:12). By these things God is shown to be both outside and within, both poured into and poured around, since he is not shut in by the throne that surrounds him, and he shuts in with his fist and his palm. He is the creator not only of heaven and earth, but also of the invisible Angels and Archangels, Dominions, Powers, and of all men, of whom the Apostle speaks (Col 1): all of which the hand of God has worked. Of this hand both Job and the Psalmist make mention: Your hand has made me and fashioned me (Job 10:18; Ps 118 [119]:73). For all things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. Of whom John says again: He was in the world, he says, and the world was made through him (John 1). For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created (Ps 32 [33]). And this is what the Scripture of Genesis shows in mystical speech: God said, and God made (Gen 1). For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, and all their power by the spirit of his mouth. And there is no place of the Lord's rest except the one which the Prophet adds next.

Thus says the Lord. Here he determines the manner of execution of the sentence. And first, in particular, as to the Jews; second, universally, as to all: but I know their works, and their thoughts (Isa 66:18). The first is divided into two parts: in the first, he excludes false confidence; second, he sets out and determines the sentence that has been given as to the manner of execution: hear the word of the Lord (Isa 66:5).

Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he excludes false trust in the sanctity of the temple, showing that the temple is not the location of God: both from the greatness of God, who fills all things, whose throne is said to be heaven, because it participates greatly in his goodness, as a seat holds the greater part of the one seated; the earth my footstool, because the earth participates least in his goodness, as the outer part of the seated person reaches to the footstool; or, by heaven, he indicates the saints, by earth, the earthly: if heaven, and the heavens of heavens, cannot contain you, how much less this house which I have built? (1 Kgs 8:27); do not I fill heaven and earth? (Jer 23:24); God dwells not in temples made with hands (Acts 17:24). And from his rest, for each thing rests in the place which is its own; however, God does not rest in anything, but all things rest in him, as they are made by him: and what is this place of my rest, above: lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things (Isa 40:26).

"On whom does my Spirit rest, if not on one who is humble and quiet and who trembles at my words?" So when he becomes the occupant, he fills and guides and leads the person, restrains from evil and spurs on to good, makes justice delightful, so that the person does good out of love for what is right, not out of fear of punishment. No one is capable on their own of doing what I have said. But if you have the Holy Spirit as the occupant of your house, you will find him also assisting you in everything good.

At these words Peter trembled, Plato did not; so let the fisherman keep what the great and famous philosopher ignored! "You have hidden these things from the wise and the knowing and have revealed them to the little ones."

The first benefit of the fear of God is that the fear of God avails for obtaining the influx of divine grace. Whence Isaiah: "To whom shall I look, except to the poor and contrite of spirit and the one trembling at my words?" However powerful, rich, learned, and strong a man may be, unless he fears God, nothing avails him.

Grace makes a man pleasing to God: but he is pleasing to God who recognizes the gift of divine favor and condescension: yet no one recognizes this except one who is attentive to his own unworthiness: and such a one is truly humble: and hence it is that the grace of the Holy Spirit rests upon the humble alone. Whence in the last chapter of Isaiah: Upon whom does My Spirit rest if not upon the humble, etc.

People do not observe a spiritual sabbath unless they devote themselves to earthly occupations so moderately that they still engage in reading and prayer, at least frequently, if not always.

God wishes to dwell in you. In order that you may not be unable to receive him because you are full, if you are filled elsewhere, let your heart be freed of superfluities so that it may be filled with what is necessary. Vices should be expelled, in order that there may be room for virtues; to say briefly what is useful and quite necessary, let carnal desires be rejected and charity invited. As long as we do not expel evil, we cannot be filled with the good, because jars filled with slime cannot receive and hold precious ointment.

Let us therefore, brethren, be of humble mind, laying aside all haughtiness, and pride, and foolishness, and angry feelings; and let us act according to that which is written (for the Holy Spirit saith, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, neither let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth glory in the Lord, in diligently seeking Him, and doing judgment and righteousness" [Jeremiah 9:23-24]), being especially mindful of the words of the Lord Jesus which He spake, teaching us meekness and long-suffering. For thus He spoke: "Be ye merciful, that ye may obtain mercy; forgive, that it may be forgiven to you; as ye do, so shall it be done unto you; as ye judge, so shall ye be judged; as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you; with what measure ye mete, with the same it shall be measured to you." [Matthew 5:7, Matthew 6:14, Matthew 7:1-2] By this precept and by these rules let us establish ourselves, that we walk with all humility in obedience to His holy words. For the holy word saith, "On whom shall I look, but on him that is meek and peaceable, and that trembleth at My words?" [Isaiah 66:2]

We must preserve in the straight and narrow road of praise and glory; and since peacefulness and humility and the tranquility of a good life are fitting for all Christians, according to the word of the Lord, who looks to no other person than "to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembles at" his word, it the more behooves you confessors, who have been made an example to the rest of the brothers, to observe and fulfill this, as being those whose characters should provoke to imitation the life and conduct of all.

For the prophet says in the person of the Father, "My Hand made all these things," meaning by "Hand," in his dark saying, the power of the Only-begotten. Now the Apostle says that all things are of the Father, and that all things are by the Son, and the prophetic spirit in a way agrees with the Apostolic teaching, which itself also is given through the Spirit. For in the one passage, the prophet, when he says that all things are the work of the Hand of Him Who is over all, sets forth the nature of those things which have come into being in its relation to Him Who made them, while He Who made them is God over all, Who has the Hand, and by It makes all things. And again, in the other passage, the Apostle makes the same division of entities, making all things depend upon their productive cause, yet not reckoning in the number of "all things" that which produces them: so that we are hereby taught the difference of nature between the created and the uncreated, and it is shown that, in its own nature, that which makes is one thing and that which is produced is another.

Differently to be admonished are the humble and the haughty. To the former it is to be insinuated how true is that excellence which they hold in hoping for it; to the latter it is to be intimated how that temporal glory is as nothing which even when embracing it they hold not. Let the humble hear how eternal are the things that they long for, how transitory the things which they despise; let the haughty hear how transitory are the things they court, how eternal the things they lose. Let the humble hear from the authoritative voice of the Truth, Every one that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Let the haughty hear, Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled. Let the humble hear, Humility goeth before glory; let the haughty hear, The spirit is exalted before a fall. Let the humble hear, Unto whom shall I have respect, but to him that is humble and quiet, and that trembleth at my words?

But to whom shall I look, except to the poor little one and the contrite of spirit, and the one who trembles at my words? He who sacrifices an ox is as one who kills a man. He who slaughters a sheep is as one who brains a dog. He who offers an oblation is as one who offers swine's blood. He who remembers frankincense is as one who blesses an idol. LXX: And upon whom shall I look, except the humble and quiet, and the one who trembles at my words? ÷ But the wicked man ⁚ who sacrifices a calf is as one who strikes down a man. He who sacrifices from the flock is as one who kills a dog. He who offers fine flour is as one who offers swine's blood. He who gives frankincense for a memorial is as a blasphemer. Once the altar and the earthly Temple, which the hand of man had built, have been taken away, the victims of the Jews too are rightly taken away, lest perhaps they should say: We are not so foolish as to think that God can be shut up in a place; but in a place set apart for sacrificing, we sacrifice to God the victims which are prescribed by the law. The inhabitant of heaven, then, or rather the Creator of all, who denies that he has a temple on earth, gladly takes up as his temple the man who is humble and quiet and trembles at his words, according to that saying of the Apostle: But you are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you. If anyone violates the temple of God, God will violate him. For the temple of God is holy, which you are (1 Cor 3:16, 17). Whoever, then, is humble and quiet and trembles at the words of God, him the Lord looks upon; and of him may be understood what is prophesied under the name of the earth: The earth trembled and was quiet, when God arose to judgment (Ps 75 [76]:9, 10). For its inhabitants, for whom the earth is named μετωνυμικῶς, considering the judgment of God, keep quiet from evil works; and sitting at home, rest in an eternal sabbath, so as not to stir themselves to the servile work of sin, as the builders of the tower once moved their feet from the East and left the rising of the true light. Nor did they hear what is said to Cain: You have sinned, be quiet (Gen 4). But according to the Proverbs of Solomon: He who hears God shall dwell confidently, and shall rest without fear from every evil (Prov 1:33). This is the humble and poor little one, contrite of spirit and trembling at the words of the Lord, of whom it is written in the Gospel: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:3). And elsewhere: Blessed is he who considers the needy and the poor (Ps 40 [41]:1). And again: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me; he has sent me to preach good news to the poor (Isa 61:1).

"For heaven is his resting place and the earth his footstool," because on the earth he conversed in the flesh with men and women. And the sacred flesh of God has been called his foot. The church, too, is called the place of God, because we have set it apart for the glorifying of God as a sort of consecrated place wherein we also hold conversation with him. Likewise also the places in which his energy becomes manifest to us, whether through the flesh or apart from the flesh, are spoken of as the places of God.

But you also, who desire to receive the sacred baptism and to merit the grace of the Spirit, ought first to be purged by the law, ought first, having heard the word of God, to cut away your inborn vices and to compose your barbarous and savage ways, so that, having taken up gentleness and humility, you may be able also to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. For thus says the Lord through the prophet: "Upon whom shall I rest, if not upon the humble and quiet one who trembles at my words?" If you are not "humble and quiet", the grace of the Holy Spirit cannot dwell in you, if you have not received the divine words with trembling. For the Holy Spirit flees from a proud and stubborn and feigning soul. You ought, therefore, first to meditate on the law of God, so that, if perchance your acts are unrestrained and your ways disordered, the law of God may amend and correct you.

In these terms God rejects the worship that was restricted to one place and shows that he is the maker of heaven and earth, and the shaper of all things and the one who has no need of a temple made with hands... I have a true house and holy temple. It is whoever arranges his or her life according to my laws and fears and trembles at transgressing my commands. It is the person who stands out in a gentle disposition and humility of mind.

And he gives a useful remedy: but to whom shall I have respect, but to him that is poor and little, that is, the humble man, who reckons himself to be little, as to the present, and of a contrite spirit, concerning his past sins, and that trembles, as to his intention of doing future things: the eyes of the Lord are towards them that fear him (Sir 15:20[19]).

He is angry with them, saying by Isaiah, "Who has required these of your hands?" And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, "Gather together your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh, for I did not speak to your ancestors or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." For they did not act as was right, neither was their zeal according to law, but they rather sought their own pleasure in such days, as the prophet accuses them, beating down their bondsmen and gathering themselves together for strifes and quarrels, and they struck the lowly with the fist and did all things that tended to their own gratification. For this cause, they continue without a feast until the end, although they make a display now of eating flesh, out of place and out of season. For, instead of the legally appointed lamb, they have learned to sacrifice to Baal; instead of the true unleavened bread, "they collect the wood, and their fathers kindle the fire, and their wives prepare the dough, that they make cakes to the host of heaven and pour out libations to strange gods, that they may provoke me to anger, says the Lord." … Therefore now, "he who among them sacrifices an ox is as he who strikes a man, and he who sacrifices a lamb is as he who kills a dog, he that offers fine flour, it is as [if he offered] swine's blood.…" Now these things will never please God, neither has the Word required this of them. But he says, "These have chosen their own ways, and their abominations are what their soul delights in."

And what follows in the common edition: But the wicked man, is not found in the Hebrew, but it simply joins on and says: He who sacrifices an ox is as one who kills a man. This is also written in another place: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice: the knowledge of God rather than holocaust (Hos 6:6). And through Malachi: All that I hated, you did: covering my altar with tears: is it fitting that I should look upon your sacrifice, and receive anything acceptable from your hands (Mal 2:13)? Let the Jews hear that God does not seek sacrifices, but the mind of those who offer. And he who slaughters, he says, a sheep is as one who brains a dog. Hence it is also written through Moses: You shall not offer the hire of a harlot, nor the price of a dog, in the house of your God. (Deut 23:18). And the dog and the harlot are fittingly joined, because each animal is prone to lust. And at the same time let us consider that he did not say: He who sacrifices a ram is as one who sacrifices a dog; but as one who kills, he says, a dog. This word is not used of sacrifices, but of things that are slaughtered unlawfully. He who offers an oblation and sacrifice is as one who offers swine's blood. This too is itself forbidden by the Law; such are the ceremonies of the Jews (Lev 11, and Deut 14). He who gives frankincense is as a blasphemer, or rather as one who blesses an idol. But this too may be the sense: After my Son, who came meek and poor, sitting upon the colt of an ass, I do not want flesh, I detest victims, I reject the sacrifices of the Jews and the shadows of the Law, because the truth of the Gospel is delightful to me (Zech 9, and Matt 21, and Luke 19, and John 12). But if this is said, that after the lightning of the Gospel the old religion ceases in the cloud, what will they answer who, believing from among the Jews, think that they can offer sacrifices carnally without harm to themselves?

All these things they have chosen in their ways, and in their abominations their soul has delighted. Therefore I too will choose their mockeries, and what they feared I will bring upon them. For I called, and there was none to answer: I spoke, and they did not hear: and they did evil in my eyes: and what I did not will, they chose. LXX: And they themselves have chosen their ways, and their soul has willed their abominations: and I will choose their mockeries, and repay them their sins. For I called them, and they did not hearken: I spoke, and they did not hear. And they did evil in my sight, and what I did not will they chose. To sacrifice an ox, to slaughter a ram, to offer sacrifice, to burn frankincense, which God regards as murder and the offering of a dog, and swine's blood and blasphemy, they themselves chose; and that they should worship such things was of their own choice; according to what he says through Ezekiel: I gave them statutes not good, and precepts not good (Ezek 20:25). And in their own ways, he says, they walked, not in the way of the Lord. And their soul has willed their abominations, so that they were lovers of themselves rather than lovers of God. For this reason, since they chose their own ways, and not him who says: I am the way (John 14:6), the Lord too chose their mockeries, or their mockers, who in Hebrew are called THALULE (תעללי), that is, ἐμπαῖκται, so as to set over them very wicked princes, and bring upon them likewise all their evils, or what they feared. And he gives the reasons why they were handed over to the Scribes and Pharisees, their mockers, of whom the first psalm sings according to the Hebrews: And he has not sat in the chair of the mockers: whom the Seventy call the pestilent: such as were the sons of Eli, sons of pestilence, for which in the Hebrew BELIAL (בליעל) is written, that is, of the devil. For, he says, I called, and there was none to answer: I spoke, and they did not hear: and they did evil in my eyes: and what I did not will, they chose. These verses he sets down a second time in the present place, and also above, where it is said: I will number you for the sword, and you shall all fall in the slaughter: for I called, and you did not answer (Isa 65:12), and the rest likewise. In what sense this testimony ought to be taken was said there.

By these words he rejected the worship prescribed by the law by teaching this; it was for their sake that he had established this legislation from early times, not because he took pleasure in their sacrifices but because he was exercising forethought for them in their weakness. That is why he put side by side what was allowed and what was forbidden, for to sacrifice an ox or give a sheep as a burnt offering, to offer the fruit of corn and frankincense—these were in former times permitted by God, but to start a fight and lose one's tongue to blasphemy was totally forbidden.

Second, he excludes the confidence that they took from their rites of sacrifice. And first, he sets out their rejection: he that sacrifices an ox, is as if he slew a man, as if to say: their sacrifices are so abominable, as if they were doing something against the law, because they were offering them to idols; as if he should bless, praise and venerate, an idol, above: offer sacrifice no more in vain (Isa 1:13). Second, he shows the reason for their rejection, first, setting out their fault: all these things have they chosen, namely, their sacrifices, walking in their wicked ways: who are glad when they have done evil, and rejoice in the most wicked things (Prov 2:14).

Second, he threatens punishment: wherefore I also will choose their mockeries: he shall scorn the scorners (Prov 3:34); the fear which I feared, has come upon me: and that which I was afraid of, has befallen me (Job 3:25). Third, he denounces the hardness of sinners: because I called: I called, and you refused (Prov 1:24).

"Your brothers who hate you." Consider them as your brothers, he says, even though they hate you because of your faith, and lead them to the fear of God, so that "the Lord may be glorified in you." According to Henana, consider them to be execrable and evil, he says, even though they are your brothers by nature. "When they are cast out for my name, the Lord will be glorified" in you, "and they will be put to shame," and maybe, he says, they will be put to shame because of that and will abstain from evil actions.

Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his speech. Your brothers who hate you, and cast you out for my name's sake, have said: Let the Lord be glorified, and we shall see in your gladness: but they shall be put to shame. LXX: Hear the word of the Lord, you who tremble at his speech. Say to your brothers who hate you and abhor you, that the name of the Lord may be glorified: and may it appear in their gladness: and they shall be put to shame. Those of whom he had already said before: Upon whom shall I look, except upon the humble and quiet, and the one who trembles at my words? he commands that, having despised the victims of the Jews and scorned all the swelling pride of the Scribes and Pharisees, they pass over to the worship of him whom those others would not hear when he called, and despised, and did evil in his sight. Nor is he content with this end of his precepts, but he enjoins on them the commandment of the Gospel (Luke 6): that they love their enemies, do good to those who hate them, and pray for their persecutors, and imitate the mercy of the Father, who makes his sun rise upon the just and the unjust: That seeing, he says, your works, they may glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16). After the general understanding, this is commanded specially to the Apostles and to apostolic men: that they love the Jews, their persecutors, and hold those who abhor them in the place of brothers, saying with Peter: Men, brothers and fathers, hear; and with the apostle Paul: I have sadness, and continual sorrow in my heart, for my brothers who are Israelites (Rom 9:2). And the name of the Lord is glorified when men see the ferocity of persecutors broken by our patience, and the striking hand put to shame by the turning of the other cheek. To these it is commanded in the Gospel: Let your light shine before men, that seeing your good works they may glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matt 5:16); and in the Apocalypse of John: Fear God, and give him glory (Rev 14:7). Paul too writes to the Corinthians, calling them to continence: That you may glorify God in your body (1 Cor 6:20). And again: Whether you eat or drink, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:31). Hence the Lord too did not curse in return those who cursed him (1 Pet 2), and prayed for his persecutors. But what he commands: Say to your brothers (Matt 28:10), is not to be taken simply; otherwise many call others brothers and do not keep love in their heart, of whom the Apostle writes: They profess that they know God, but in their works they deny him (Titus 1:16). Of these the Lord too was speaking: 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). And so that sentence can stand: No one says, Lord Jesus, except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3). For though the heretics say Lord Jesus, and many in the resurrection will say: Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and do many mighty works (Matt 7:22)? the Lord will answer them: Depart from me, I do not know you, workers of iniquity. Therefore saying is proved not by speech, which is easy, but by disposition and works. From these things we learn that the Lord of both Testaments is the same, who commands that if we see the beast of our enemy fall under its burden, we should not pass by, but lift it up with him, and if we find an ox or an ass straying, we should return it to him (Luke 15, Matt 18). So much according to the Seventy. Further, according to the Hebrew, this seems to me to be the sense: Hear, Apostles, hear, my disciples, you who tremble at the word of the Lord: I will tell what your brothers have said, who hate and separate you and reckon you strangers, not because of your evils but because of my name; who think unclean all those of their nation who believe in me, and say: Depart from me, for you are unclean. What, then, is it that he records them to have said: Let the Lord be glorified, and we shall see in your gladness? The sense of this little verse is this: Why do you bring in to us a humble God? why one crucified, and a man of sorrows, who knows how to bear infirmities? We want to behold him reigning in his majesty (as you say): we will look up to him triumphing in his glory too; humble and cast down we cannot see him. And at once he adds: But they shall be put to shame; understood: those who say such things, who do not understand the mysteries of the Scriptures, and will feel through their own evils the power of him whom they had despised for his humility.

Hear the word of the Lord. Here he describes the manner of execution of the sentence. And first, as to the rewards of the good; second, as to the punishments of the wicked: and the hand of the Lord shall be known (Isa 66:14). The first of these is divided into two. First, he stirs up attention: hear the word of the Lord, you that tremble, from reverence for his words: you that fear the Lord, believe him (Sir 2:8); second, he describes the promise. And first, as to vengeance on the mockers, setting out their mockery: your brethren have said: let the Lord be glorified, as if to say: let the glory of the Lord, which you await, appear, as if to say: he will never appear, above: they shall come with speed swiftly, and there is none that shall faint, nor labor among them (Isa 5:26–27); and he foretells their confusion: but they shall be confounded.

For it was the Lord's voice that said, "rendering recompense to his enemies," ordering and exhorting those who destroy to spare none of those captured, savagely attacking the enemies and not only simply with the wrath of warriors but also with the will of the Sovereign. For this was only the means of their captivity and suffering.

A voice of uproar from the city, a voice from the Temple, the voice of the Lord rendering recompense to his enemies. For uproar the LXX put crying, and the rest likewise. We wish to know what the confusion of the Jews is, who said: Let the Lord be glorified, that we may see your gladness, and may behold the triumphs of your king with our eyes, by no means in empty promises. A voice, he says, of crying from the city: without doubt it signifies Jerusalem surrounded by the Roman army and divided within into three parts by sedition, when one held the Temple and possessed all that had formerly been holy, fighting outside against the enemy and inside against his fellow citizens. At that time, both in the city and in the Temple, there was heard the howling of priests and Levites as well as of the common rabble, of women and children, when the Lord rendered recompense to his enemies, fulfilling the threat in which he had said: Your house shall be left to you desolate (Luke 13:35); and that prophecy: I have forsaken my house. When the Angels presiding over the temple said with one voice: Let us pass out of these abodes. Of these things not only Josephus, the writer of the Jewish history, but many ages before the Psalmist testifies, saying: I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city (Ps 54 [55]:10), which surrounded its walls all day and all night, so that the city was overthrown (Mic 3), and another prophecy was fulfilled: Zion shall be plowed like a field: and Jerusalem shall be left like a hut in a garden of cucumbers (Isa 1:8).

In this manner, because a voice of the people, fearing, the voice of the Lord, as to the tumult of their enemies: the voice of the day of the Lord is bitter (Zeph 1:14).

Again Isaiah teaches that Jerusalem will not be destroyed root, branch and all. For when he foretold the complete captivity of Jerusalem, he mentioned those chosen to survive. For a not insignificant number will be saved, obviously through faith in Christ—and he wants to make this clear. But the Jews were enraged with him and killed the prince of life. But when he rose again, trampling on death, he returned to his God and Father in heaven. In the meantime, the divine apostles proclaimed him to all, and they called even those who had been enraged with him to repentance and to salvation through faith and the forgiveness of sins through baptism.

Before she was in labor, she brought forth: before her travail came, she brought forth a male. Who has ever heard such a thing? who has seen the like of this ? Shall the earth be in labor in one day: or shall a nation be brought forth at once? for Zion has been in labor and has brought forth her sons: Shall I, who make others bring forth, not bring forth myself, says the Lord? If I, who give generation to the rest, am barren, says the Lord your God. LXX: Before she who travails brings forth: before the pain of those in travail comes, she escapes, and she has brought forth a male. Who has heard such a thing, and who has seen the like? If the earth has travailed in one day; or if a nation has been born at once, because Zion has travailed and brought forth her little ones. But I have given this expectation, and you have not remembered me, says the Lord. Have I not made her who bears and the barren, says your God? While the crying resounded from Jerusalem and its Temple, when it was besieged and overthrown, and the enemies of Christ, who would not receive God as king, were receiving eternal punishments for their impiety and blasphemies, the Church gathered in the name of the Lord, of which it is said in the psalm: A man was born in her: and the most high himself has founded her (Ps 86 [87]:5), before she was in labor brought forth; before her travail came, she bore a male. For it was not over a long time, as the people of the Jews grew greater through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs, and again through their children and grandchildren; but at the preaching of the Gospel the whole world at once conceived, and was in labor, and brought forth a male, whom Pharaoh and Herod tried to kill, and who, both in Moses and in Christ, was saved in Egypt. Finally, Abraham and Isaac had male children, and Jacob, the father of many sons, begot one daughter, for whose sake he suffered hard things (Gen 34). And if the daughters of Zelophehad, by the sentence of God, receive their father's inheritance (Num 27), this is to be considered: that their father, who begot no son, died in his own sin, and that Moses dared to judge nothing concerning them, but referred it to the Lord, who, lest they remain without means, commanded them to be joined to their kinsmen. The book of Genesis also relates (Chapter 6) that after men began to become many, a number that is always associated with vice, and daughters were born to them, they were taken, not by Angels, but by the sons of God, from whom the giants were born: or, as it is written in the Hebrew, ἐπιπίπτοντες, that is, those who fall upon. On the contrary, it is said to the saint: Your wife like an abundant vine on the sides of your house. Your sons like young olive plants round about your table (Ps 127 [128]:3). And again: May you see your sons' sons (ibid. 6).

Now when the fullness of time came, an angel of the Lord was sent to [Mary] with the good news of her conception of the Lord. And thus she conceived the Son of God, the subsistent power of the Father, "not of the will of the flesh or of the will of man"—that is to say, not of carnal conjunction and seed—but of the good pleasure of the Father and the cooperation of the Holy Spirit. To the Creator she gave that he might be created, to the Fashioner that he might be fashioned, and to the Son of God and God that he might from her innocent and undefiled flesh and blood put on flesh and become man. And thus she paid the debt for the first mother. For as Eve was formed from Adam without carnal conjunction, so did this one bring forth the new Adam in accordance with the law of gestation but surpassing the nature of generation. Thus, he who is without a mother begotten of a father was without a father born of a woman. And because it was of a woman it was in accordance with the law of gestation; while, because it was without father, it surpassed the nature of generation. And because it was at the normal time, for having completed the nine-month period he was born at the beginning of the tenth, it was in accordance with the law of gestation, while because it was without pain it surpassed the established order of birth—for where pleasure had not preceded, pain did not follow, as the prophet said, "Before she was in labor, she brought forth," and again, "before her time came to be delivered she brought forth a man child."And so the Son of God became incarnate and was born of her. It was not as God-bearing man that he was born of her but as God incarnate; not as a prophet anointed through the operation of the one anointing but as one anointed with the entire presence of the one anointing—so that the one anointing became man and the one anointed became God.

Now that that parturition was polluted, and stood not in need of expiatory victims, Isaiah is our witness, who proclaims distinctly to the whole earth under the sun: "Before she travailed," he says, "she brought forth before her pains came, she escaped, and brought forth a man-child." Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? The most holy virgin mother, therefore, escaped entirely the manner of women even before she brought forth: doubtless, in order that the Holy Spirit, betrothing her unto Himself, and sanctifying her, she might conceive without intercourse with man. She hath brought forth her first-born Son, even the only-begotten Son of God, Him, I say, who in the heavens above shone forth as the only-begotten, without mother, from out His Father's substance, and preserved the virginity of His natural unity undivided and inseparable; and who on earth, in the virgin's nuptial chamber, joined to Himself the nature of Adam, like a bridegroom, by an inalienable union, and preserved His mother's purity uncorrupt and uninjured—Him, in short, who in heaven was begotten without corruption, and on earth brought forth in a manner quite unspeakable.

Second, he describes the promise as to abundance of goods. And first, as to the reuniting of the people, setting out the promise, before she was in labor, she brought forth; that is, the children of Jerusalem will be gathered to her suddenly and at the same time, just as if a woman brought forth a child suddenly, without first being in labor, above: the children are come to the birth (Isa 37:3). Mystically, this is interpreted as concerning the labor of the Blessed Virgin, and the labor of the Church in the conversion of the faithful, and the labor of eternal begetting.

Zion, then, that is, the remnant from Israel and the faith of the believing Apostles, brought forth a male, the Lord Savior, who was born at once in the whole world: something that no one has heard of, that no history relates, nor the teaching of anyone, that all the nations should believe in a short time, and that out of all the nations there should be made one nation of the Christians, of which Paul too speaks: If anyone is a new creature in Christ, the old things have passed away; behold, they have become new (2 Cor 5:17): according to what is written elsewhere: And all the families of the nations shall worship in his sight: for the kingdom is the Lord's, and he shall rule over the nations. For all the nations, he says, which you have made shall come and worship before you, and shall glorify your name (Ps 21 [22]:28ff.). Of him Jacob says: He is the expectation of the nations (Gen 49:10). And the Psalmist: The hope of all the ends of the earth (Ps 64 [65]:6). And the same Isaiah whom we are now expounding: There shall be the root of Jesse, and he who shall rise up to be prince of the nations; in him the nations shall hope (Isa 11:10); the Apostles fulfilling what was commanded: Teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19), so that a new people may be born, of which Psalm 21 (22) also sings: The heavens shall announce his righteousness to a people that shall be born, which the Lord has made (Ps 21 [22]:32). And again: A people that shall be created shall praise the Lord (Ps 101 [102]:19). And this people was created in one day, which the sun of righteousness illumines, as Scripture says: The Lord shall be to you an everlasting light (Isa 60:19). What is said: A nation shall arise at once, for Zion has been in labor and has brought forth her sons, we can also refer to that time when in one day three thousand and five thousand of the Jewish people believed (Acts 2). It is also said in the same book of the Acts of the Apostles that there were in Jerusalem men from all the nations under heaven, who heard them speaking the great works of God in various tongues (ibid.).

Further, according to the LXX the sense is this: that at one time, at the preaching of the Gospels, one nation of the whole world should arise. Through many prophets I have often promised, and you have not remembered my promise, O city which is full of cries, O Temple which has been forsaken by the Lord, O people to whom I have rendered its recompense. Have I not, he says, made her who travails and the barren; she who before had been barren afterwards travailed and brought forth? Of her it is written in the psalm: Who makes the barren woman dwell in a house, a mother rejoicing in sons (Ps 112 [113]:9). Or certainly the order of things has been reversed: she who bore has become barren, and she who was once barren has brought forth very many, because this is the sentence of the Lord.

And he introduces the wondering question: who has ever heard such a thing, above: who has begotten these? (Isa 49:21).

To that which is objected, that the cause of generation and corruption is to be far distant from the First: it must be said that this is not the whole reason. For man, if he had remained in the state of innocence, would never have been corrupted, and yet he would have generated. Whence generation is rather from the supreme perfection and fecundity and actuality of the first principle itself, than it is for the supplementing of the defect of corruption of the productive principle itself. Therefore the Philosopher speaks of the cause of generation according to the state of deficient nature, not generally and according to the mode of that most complete generation, which is the origin of all production. For the generator of the species constituted all these things, and he himself, who bestows generation upon others, cannot be sterile, according to what is said in the last chapter of Isaiah.

And what follows according to the LXX: But I have given this expectation, and you have not remembered me, says the Lord. Have I not made her who bears and the barren, said your God, is put more plainly in the Hebrew, with which the other translators also agree: Shall I, who make others bring forth, not bring forth myself, says the Lord? If I, who give generation to the rest, am barren, says the Lord your God; according to what is said elsewhere: He who planted the ear, shall he not hear? and he who formed the eye, does he not consider (Ps 93 [94]:9); namely, that he who created all men out of nothing can make out of all the nations one part of those who believe in him, the Church. Finally, in Psalm 28 (29), where we read: The voice of the Lord shaking the desert (Ps 28 [29]:8), in the Hebrew it is written: The voice of the Lord making the desert bring forth (According to the Hebrew), so that the Church, formerly a desert, may bring forth, and the stags may be perfected when the woodlands are opened and crushed.

And he sets out the response in the person of the Lord: shall not I that make others to bring forth children, myself bring forth, gathering the Jews, or the converted faithful; or the Son, from eternity. Similar to this is Psalm 93[94]:9: he that planted the ear, shall he not hear? Or he that formed the eye, doth he not consider? And these arguments hold, if that which belongs to the perfection of creatures is attributed [to God], removing all that which belongs to imperfection.

Rejoice with Jerusalem, and exult in her, all you who love her. Rejoice with her with joy, all you who mourn over her, that you may suck and be filled from the breast of her consolation, that you may milk and abound with delights from her glory of every kind. LXX: Rejoice, Jerusalem, and make an assembly, all you who love her. Rejoice with joy, all you who mourn over her, that you may suck and be filled from the breast of her consolation, that, after you have sucked, you may be delighted from the entrance of her glory. It is commanded to the Apostles and to apostolic men, who love both Jerusalems, bewailing and mourning the one that has fallen, and awaiting with all desire the one that is to rise, that they rejoice with her and in her, who has been built of living stones, which roll upon the earth and, in the likeness of the wheels of the Cherubim, follow the spirit going before: not in those stones which have been dissolved into eternal ashes. Of these the Lord was speaking: Amen, amen I say to you, there shall not remain stone upon stone, until all these things are fulfilled (Matt 24:2). Rejoice, he says, with her with joy, all you who mourn her. Such were those whom we have shown above, the apostles Peter and Paul, and all who were awaiting the redemption of Israel: that they may suck and be filled at the breasts of her consolation.

Second, he promises immense comfort to the gathered Jews. And first, he invites others to congratulation: rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad with her, as in the object of joy, setting out the condition of congratulation as to affection: all you that love her: eat, O friends, and drink, and be inebriated, my dearly beloved (Song 5:1); as to the sign of affection: all you that mourn for her: blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:5).

This struggle is the correction of noble good deeds in them. For their sweat is profitable, and they have youth-like endurance in order to gain not an earthly possession but rather so that they become filled with graces from God and are satisfied in every desire. To these he makes this promise, "Like infants at the breast you will be filled by the breasts of consolation." Since Isaiah has previously compared the figure of a woman with the new Zion, he remains in this way of speaking and compares this comfort with that of the breasts and milk of the Holy Spirit. For in the Song of Songs it says, "Your breasts are better than wine."

For it could not be that she who had borne a male and had just given birth should lack an abundance of milk for the rearing of that nation and of the little ones who had been born at once, so that she might offer them two breasts, by no means, as formerly in Egypt, broken and lying low, but whole and standing in virginal beauty, those of the Old and New Instrument, to supply rational milk. Of these the bridegroom speaks to her: Your breasts are better than wine (Song 1:1). These were the ones of whom they specially said: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matt 5:5). And this is to be noted: that those who are little ones need the milk of consolation, and are still in a mortal place. But those who after the milk of consolation have advanced to solid food will abound with the delights of truth, and with the knowledge of glory of every kind, which in Hebrew is called ZIZ (זיז). For this the LXX translated entrance; Symmachus fatness; Theodotion multitude. We have said this in order to open an ambiguous word of Psalm 79 (80), in which it is written: The boar from the forest has laid it waste, and the solitary wild beast has fed upon it (Ps 79 [80]:14). For where in our codices and in the Greek one reads μόνιος ἄγριος, that is, the solitary wild beast, in the Hebrew ZIZ SADAI (זיז שדי) is written: which Aquila translated παντόδαπον χώρας, that is, every kind of thing of the region, to signify that Israel was laid waste not only by the Romans but by all the nations. And the glorious entrance of the Church is to be understood as that of which the apostle John writes: And in the twelve gates were twelve pearls, and the streets of the city of pure gold, like transparent glass (Rev 21:21). These pearls the Lord forbids to be cast before swine (Matt 7); and when the good merchant has found them in the Prophets and Apostles, he goes on to the one most precious pearl, not casting away the former ones, but seeking through them the more precious (Matt 13).

And the fruit of congratulation as to participation in her gladness or peace: that you may suck: your breasts are better than wine (Song 1:1); as to participation in her glory, that you may milk out, as though extracting milk: then shall you abound in delights in the Almighty (Job 22:6).

So, then, the Holy Spirit is the river, and the abundant river, which according to the Hebrews flowed from Jesus in the lands, as we have received it prophesied by the mouth of Isaiah. This is the great river that flows always and never fails. And not only a river but also one of the copious stream and overflowing greatness, as also David said, "The stream of the river makes glad the city of God."

And Scripture calls Christ "glory," for the psalmist says about him, "to prepare glory in our land." This entrance is the mystery of the economy in the flesh. Being God by nature, he became man through his incarnation and in such manner came into the world. Those feed on the precise message of faith concerning him, and they learn in what way the glory, that is, Christ came into the world. And directly connected to this, the divine prophet speaks of his clear appearance in the flesh, taking on Christ's voice as he says, "I will descend on them as a river of peace, and as a spring I will wash over the glory of the nations."

For thus says the Lord: Behold, I turn upon her as it were a river of peace, and as an overflowing torrent the glory of the nations, which you shall suck: you shall be carried at the breast, and upon the knees they shall caress you. LXX: For thus says the Lord: Behold, I will turn toward them like a river of peace, and like a torrent overflowing the glory of the nations. Their little ones shall be carried on the shoulders, and upon the knees they shall be comforted. When Jerusalem has been built up by the Apostles and restored to her former state, after her sons and inhabitants have been comforted at her breasts and through the abundance of milk have come to the delights of truth, through which one comes to the glory of God: then the Lord will turn upon her the river of peace, of which we have often said: The river of God is filled with waters (Ps 64 [65]:10). And: The rush of the river gladdens the city of God (Ps 45 [46]:5); so that, with peace possessing all things, and the wars of the nations ceasing, of whom Scripture says: Scatter the nations that want wars (Ps 67 [68]:32), the torrent of the teachings of God may water the fields of believers. Then her sons, or little ones (as the LXX translated), shall be carried on the shoulders, and upon the knees they shall receive comfort. On the shoulders, of which it was also said in the earlier prophecy, and which Jacob invokes upon his son Issachar: For he put his shoulder under to labor (Gen 49:15), and he was called a husbandman. For it is by sweat and great labor that we come to an abundance of fruits. Hence it is said to Zion through Jeremiah too: Set your heart upon your shoulders (Jer 24:7), so that she may understand the Lord from his commandments, imitating him of whom it is written: Jesus began to do and to teach (Acts 1:1), so that faith may not be idle, but may run through works to the reward. What knees and bosom signify I have briefly explained above too, and now the example of Abraham can teach us, in whose bosom Lazarus rests, and all who come from the East and the West, who shall recline with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Second, he promises an abundant gathering of peace: for thus says the Lord: behold I will bring upon her, so that an overflowing is called, as a river descending with great force comes and does not overflow; and of glory: and as an overflowing torrent, above: your peace had been as a river (Isa 48:18).

Third, he promises full reception of comfort. First, as to the administration of the gentiles: which you shall suck, that is, the glory of the Gentiles, for the kings of the gentiles themselves will comfort and sustain you; thus follows: at the breasts. Mystically: this is said of the Apostles, who delighted in the glory of the gentiles who were swiftly converted, and who carried them as at the breast with caressing admonitions, above: you shall suck the milk of the Gentiles (Isa 60:16).

A mother draws her children near her; we seek our mother, the church. Whatever is weak and young has an appeal and sweetness and lovableness of its own, just because in its weakness it does stand in need of assistance. But God does not withhold assistance from such an age of life. Just as the male and female parent regard their young tenderly—whether it be horses their colts, or cows their calves, or lions their cubs, or deer their fawn or men and women their children—so, too, does the Father of all draw near to those who seek his aid, giving them a new birth and making them his own adopted children. He recognizes them as his little ones, he loves only them, and he comes to the aid of such as these and defends them. That is why he calls them his children.

As one whom a mother caresses, so will I comfort you, and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted. You shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall sprout like grass. And the hand of the Lord shall be known to his servants, and he shall be indignant with his enemies. For servants the LXX put those who fear; for enemies, the unbelieving: the rest likewise. We learn the mercy of the Creator toward his creatures from the example of mothers, who, nursing their children with love in their bosom, surpass every affection. Finally, God, wishing to show how he loves those whom he has created: Shall, he says, a woman forget, so as not to have pity on the offspring of her womb? but even if she should forget, yet I will not forget you (Isa 49:15). The Gospel passage too has this sense, in which the Lord speaks to Jerusalem: How often have I wished to gather your sons, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not (Matt 23:37)? And Deuteronomy, in which something of the kind resounds: As the eagle protects her nest, and has longed for her young: spreading her wings, she has taken them up and carried them on her shoulders (Deut 32:11). Those who have written on the natures of living creatures say that in all wild beasts, beasts of burden, cattle and birds there is an inborn affection toward their offspring and young, but that the love of eagles is the greatest, which place their nests in high and inaccessible places, lest a snake harm the brood. And that an amethyst stone is found among its young, by which all poisons are overcome. If this is true, the affection of God toward his creatures is rightly compared to eagles, who protects his children with every guard, lest the dragon and ancient snake, the devil and Satan, creep up on the new brood, so that at the name of the stone which is laid in the foundations of Zion all the snares of the adversaries may be broken. And this Jerusalem, in which the sons shall be comforted by their mother and fondled on her knees, is the one of which the Apostle writes: But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is the mother of us all (Gal 4:26). Filled with the milk of her consolation, he comforted the others who needed his words, saying: Blessed be God, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who comforts us in all tribulation, so that we too may be able to comfort those who are in any tribulation, through the consolation with which we ourselves are comforted by God (2 Cor 1:3).

Second, as to divine protection: as one whom the mother caresses: you have forgotten the consolation (Heb 12:5).

After these have been comforted, it will be said to them: And you shall see, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall sprout like grass, or shall spring up, or according to Symmachus, shall flourish (John 16:22). And they shall see, without doubt, God, which is true gladness. Of these the Lord spoke: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God (Matt 5:8). The vision of him is perfect joy, which dwells in the heart of full faith: and the sprouting of the bones follows, of which we have already spoken before. If the reader has forgotten this, let him go back to the earlier explanation. For it is better for him to read again what was written than for us to repeat what was said. And known, he says, shall be the hand of the Lord to his servants, or to those who fear him, and he shall threaten his enemies, or his unbelieving. Now the hand is taken either for power, in that God can do all the things that he promises, according to what Moses says in the person of God to Pharaoh: Now I will send forth my hand, and I will strike you, and I will kill your people, and you shall be blotted out from the earth (Exod 3:20). And again he himself to the same tyrant: Behold, the hand of the Lord shall be upon your cattle (Exod 9:4); of which the Psalmist said to God: Your hand slew the nations, and you planted them (Ps 43 [44]). Or certainly the hand of the Lord is to be understood as Christ, of whom we also read above: My hand has made all these things. This hand the Lord will make known to his servants and to those who fear him, and he will threaten his unbelieving ones and his enemies, so as to promise rewards to the one, and to threaten punishments to the other. In this the propriety of the words is to be considered: that he did not say, He will inflict upon his enemies, but he shall threaten, so that, deterred by the threat, they too may pass over to the service of the Lord.

For it is not only in the present life that I provide consolation for you through my heralds, but also in the heavenly city I will fill you with manifold joys—granting you the resurrection from the dead. This is what he meant by comparing the growth of bones to the growth of a plant.

Third, as to the enjoyment of goods, you shall see good things given to you by God; bones, you who in adversity were like dry bones: you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord (Ezek 37:4). Or you shall see the divine essence: the light is sweet, and it is delightful for the eyes to see the sun (Eccl 11:7); and your bones shall flourish like an herb, in the resurrection.

And the hand of the Lord shall be known. Here he promises punishment to the wicked. And first, he threatens punishment, setting out the indignation of the judge: the hand, afflicting the impious, in his servants; or, the hand, of comfort, in his servants, by its effect, above: there is no indignation in me (Isa 27:4).

For behold, the Lord will come in fire: and his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his fury in indignation, and his rebuke in a flame of fire. For in fire the Lord is judged, and with his sword unto all flesh: and those slain by the Lord shall be multiplied. LXX: Behold, the Lord will come as fire, and his chariots as a tempest, to render his vengeance in fury: and his rebuke in a flame of fire. For in the fire of the Lord all the earth shall be judged: and by his sword all flesh shall fall: many shall be wounded by the Lord. The hand of the Lord, which will be made known to his servants and to those who fear him, itself threatens the unbelieving, or his enemies, that if they do not repent they shall endure what follows: For behold, he says, the Lord will come in fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind or tempest. These we ought to understand as the Angelic powers, when the Lord is to come in the glory of the Father with his Angels, to judge the living and the dead: not that the Lord is fire, but that to those who endure punishments he seems to be fire. And although Moses said (Deut 4:24), and the Apostle confirms the same (Heb 12:29): God is a consuming fire; yet the Savior, expressing the substance of the divinity, says: God is spirit (John 4:24). But between spirit and fire, according to bodily understanding, there is much difference. And if he is fire or spirit, how is he said to have eyes and ears and hands and feet and belly and the other members of the body, since spirit and fire do not have these? God, then, is called a consuming fire so that he may consume whatever vices are in us, hay, wood and stubble, and the thorns, that is, the cares of this world, which the unfruitful earth has borne instead of good seed, of which it is said to the Hebrews: But that which bears thorns and thistles is reprobate and near to a curse; whose end is burning (Heb 6:8). Of this fire the Lord too was speaking in the Gospel: I have come to cast fire upon the earth (Luke 12:49). And we read above: Iniquity shall burn like fire, and like dry grass it shall be consumed by fire (Isa 9:18), and all the tares which the enemy sowed over, while the householder slept (Matt 13). Of this it is also written in the Epistle of James: How small a fire kindles how great a matter (Jas 3:5)! And in Proverbs: With much wood the fire thrives (Prov 26:20). Although, in that it is a proverb, something else may be understood (Sir 28). This fire, I think, sat upon the tongues of the Apostles and of all believers, when they spoke in various tongues, and it put to flight all the darkness of error, and illuminated the hearts of those who received the word of the Lord (Acts 2). And what follows: His chariots like a tempest, or his four-horse chariots, we shall explain by examples from the Psalms, in which it is written: God will come openly, our God, and will not keep silent. Fire shall burn before him: and round about him a mighty tempest (Ps 49 [50]:3, 4). And elsewhere: The chariot of God is ten thousandfold, thousands of those who rejoice (Ps 67 [68]:18). With these chariots and horses Elisha was surrounded, which his servant could not see. Hence he says: O Lord, open the eyes of this servant, that he may see. And when his eyes were opened, it says, he saw chariots and four-horse chariots and horses round about (2 Kgs 6:17). In this fiery chariot Elijah too was snatched up to heaven, when Elisha cried: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its charioteer (2 Kgs 2:12). All these things are related, not that God has chariots or four-horse chariots, or is carried by the swiftness of horses, he of whom it is written elsewhere: Who walks upon the wings of the winds (Ps 103 [104]:3); but as he is said to sit on a throne when he assumes the bearing of one who judges, so when he comes to vengeance, to subdue his adversaries, he is shown in the bearing of a victor and one who triumphs. Of the fury of the Lord we have often said that it ought to be taken in the same way as his forgetfulness, and repentance, and sorrow, and the other affections which do not befit the majesty of God.

And he sets out the magnitude of the punishment: for behold the Lord will come with fire, by which the city is to be burned, or by which the world is to be purified; and his chariots, the army of the Chaldeans, in which God comes, as it were, or the angels, who will come with him for judgment: a fire shall go before him (Ps 96[97]:3).

"For he will come like fire." … For he will descend from heaven in the glory of God the Father and with the angels. This is his chariot, as it is praised in the Psalms: "The chariot of the Lord is ten thousand in dimensions with thousands of those rejoicing." For he will come to give judgment in anger and to cast them off with a flame of fire. For "casting off" means rejection, just as he says to those who are dead in their sins, "Depart from me, you evildoers."

And so in this fire and fury, in these chariots and in the flame of fire all flesh shall be judged, or the Lord himself with his creatures, so that he may be seen to pass sentence not by power but by the truth of judgment, according to what is said at greater length in Micah and more briefly in Psalm 50 (51): That you may be justified in your words, and may prevail when you are judged (Ps 50 [51]:5). And the sword by which all flesh is to be judged is to be taken as that of which we have spoken before, and shall now speak in part: Unless you are converted, he will brandish his sword (Ps 7:13). This sword, the punisher of sinful flesh and of all vices, the Israelites complain had been given into the hands of Pharaoh; and they say to Moses and Aaron: May God see you and judge: for you have made our odor abominable before Pharaoh, so that a sword was given into his hand, and he might kill us (Exod 5:21). Of this sword it is also written in Amos: By the sword all the sinners of the people shall perish (Amos 9:10): though there are certainly other kinds of punishments as well. Whatever, then, pricks and strikes and tortures and torments is called a sword in the holy Scriptures; by which sword those shall be wounded, or slain, who have not done the will of God, and, having abandoned the light of truth, have wrapped themselves in the darkness of error. Of whom it is written in Jeremiah: If the Ethiopian will change his skin (Jer 13:23). And in Zephaniah: And you Ethiopians shall be wounded, or slain by my sword (Zeph 2:12). In what sense the whole content of this passage is to be taken, the Apostle explains at greater length, writing to the Romans: But according to your hardness and impenitent heart, you treasure up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his works. To those indeed who, according to patience in good work, seek glory and honor and incorruption, eternal life. But to those who are of contention and are unbelieving toward the truth, but consent to iniquity, wrath and fury, tribulation and distress upon all men who work evil, the Jew first and the heathen (Rom 2:5ff.).

They shall fall by the sword of God (Amos 9:10). And he sets out the multitude of those who are punished: the slain of the Lord shall be many, above: for there is a victim of the Lord in Bosra and a great slaughter in the land of Edom (Isa 34:6).

Those who were sanctified, and thought themselves clean in the gardens behind one within: who ate swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, says the Lord. LXX: Those who are sanctified and purified in the gardens and on the thresholds: eating pig's flesh, and abominations, and the mouse: they shall be consumed together, says the Lord. Symmachus and Theodotion translated this passage thus: You who are sanctified and cleansed in the gardens one after another, among those who eat swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall fail together, says the Lord, wishing to show that it is not those who are sanctified in the gardens one after another who themselves eat swine's flesh and the abomination and the mouse; but that those who are cleansed associate with those who eat the things that are forbidden. And the divine word rebukes the peoples of the Jews, or rather the Scribes and Pharisees, whom the Lord too rebuked, saying: You are those who justify yourselves before men: but God knows your hearts, for what is exalted among men is an abomination before God (Luke 16:15). Hence he rebuked them and said: Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who clean the outside of the cup and the dish, and within you are full of uncleanness (Matt 23:25). And again: You who are whitewashed tombs: but within you are full of the bones of the dead and of all filth (ibid. 27): who blessed with their mouth and cursed in their heart (Ps 61 [62]); who spoke peaceable things to the Lord and made their words softer than oil, but were themselves darts; of whom it was most rightly said: This people honors me with their lips: but their heart is far from me (Isa 29:13). Now God had commanded through Moses (Num 19) that if anyone had been overtaken in sin, he should be sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, and by other modes of expiation, through sacrifices and victims, return to the Temple; neglecting this, they built in places of delight and pleasure, that is, in the most pleasant gardens, either baptisteries or pools for watering their garden beds, thinking to wash away adulteries and all the foulness of lusts with plain water; to whom that saying will most rightly be applied: And they purge the night in the river (Horace). Nor let it seem unfitting to anyone if things that are done shamefully are set out rather plainly, for the correction of those who do not blush to commit such things as it is shameful even to speak of, while they cling to harlots in the manner of dogs, and males work shamefulness upon males, receiving in themselves the recompense of their sin. Those who do these works are, in will and in crimes, with those who eat swine's flesh and all the things that are forbidden by the Law, and the mouse, which we call the dormouse, or, according to the provinces of the East, μυωξοὺς. Both those, then, who eat these things, and these who practice every foulness, doing such things as perhaps even the heathen do not do, shall be consumed alike (Lev 11). According to tropology we can say: all who are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God are sanctified in the gardens and on the thresholds, because they cannot enter the mysteries of truth, and they eat the foods of impiety, since they are not holy in body and spirit; nor do they eat the flesh of Jesus or drink his blood. Of which he himself speaks: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life (John 6:55). For Christ our pasch has been sacrificed (1 Cor 5). He is eaten not outside, but in one house and within.

Second, he reproaches their fault: they that were sanctified, thinking to cleanse themselves of uncleanness by the waters, or even by the sacrifices of idols, in the gardens, in which they worshipped idols, or occupied themselves with pleasure; behind one woman, copulating with women in the manner of beasts, or behind the gate, in other manuscripts; the mouse, the dormouse, contrary to the law (Lev 11:29), above: that eat swine's flesh, and profane broth (Isa 65:4).

Christ makes, as it were, a certain recapitulation of the whole discourse, and of all prophecy through these things, and as in brief and concise terms he announces the things from the beginning to the end, and the power of the economy in the flesh. For he also remembers the calling of the nations, and the appointment of the holy apostles, and that he will be worshipped by all under heaven. For the old law gathered one and only one nation, that is, clearly, the one from Israel, and it called one tongue. But our Lord Jesus Christ did not bestow the power of the economy in the flesh on those of the blood of Israel alone, but indeed on every nation and all tongues. For He said through the lyre of the Psalmist: "Hear these things, all nations: give ear, all you who inhabit the world:" therefore I will gather all, he says: "They shall come, and shall see my glory." For they have been called through faith, and those who were once far off have become near, and they have seen his glory: how, or in what way? For they have heard through the evangelical proclamations that he is both equal in work and equal in strength to God the Father, and he has become the accomplisher of things beyond reason, so as to raise the dead from their tombs, and to give light to the blind, and in addition to these things to have done other things worthy of all account and wonder. Or in another way: they have seen his glory, having been initiated that the Word was God, and became man: for the Gentiles have not said, as the Jews did: "Why do you, being a man, make yourself God?" But rather, having recognized the mystery concerning him, they cry out those sacred words: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," and indeed also that which was said by the holy apostles, "Truly you are the Son of God." And a sign has also been set upon them: for as Paul says, "We were sealed with the Spirit of redemption, and Christ was formed in all our hearts through participation in the Holy Spirit."

The Lord comes, then, to gather the works and thoughts of each. From this we learn that not only works but thoughts too are to be judged on the day of judgment. For he who has looked on a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matt 5). Of these it is said: Now their own thoughts have surrounded them: when the Lord will judge the hidden things of men according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ; so that what the Apostle writes may be proved by the truth of the judgment: their thoughts mutually accusing or excusing them, on the day when God will judge the hidden things of men (Rom 2:15): so that all our thoughts, gathered at one time, may be examined by the righteous judge, while our conscience either accuses us or makes satisfaction for the offense, whether the sins are more or the good works, and whether they are old or new, whether blotted out by repentance or renewed by fresh crimes, when the Lord says: I have given their ways upon their heads: and I will render them their thoughts (Hos 4:9). Who fashioned their hearts one by one, and understands all their works (Ps 32 [33]:15). Of whom we also read in another place: You alone know the hearts of men (2 Chr 6:30). For no one knows the things that are in a man except the spirit of the man that is in him (1 Cor 2). Hence God also speaks through Jeremiah: I am a God at hand, and not from afar, says the Lord: Shall a man hide himself in secret places, and I not know (Jer 23:23)? Finally it is said to the Scribes and to the Pharisees: You are those who justify yourselves before men: but God knows your hearts (Luke 16:15). In this it is to be considered that he did not say Father, according to the blasphemies of the heretics, lest he should seem to exclude the Son, but God, which is common to the Father and the Son. In the beginning indeed was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God: he was in the beginning with God (John 1:1, 2). Of whom the same John writes: But Jesus himself did not trust himself to them, because he knew all men, and had no need that anyone should bear witness to him of man: for he himself knew what was in man (John 2:24, 25). With this too agrees: But Jesus, knowing their thoughts (Luke 6:8). And in another place: But Jesus, knowing their malice (Matt 22:18). And lest there be any doubt that he knows all things, since the heretics raise a calumny about the Word of God, it is said at greater length in the Epistle written to the Hebrews: For the word of God is living, and evident, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and dividing even to the parting of soul and spirit, of joints also and marrow, and a judge of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature invisible in his sight. But all things are naked and open to the eyes of him of whom we speak (Heb 4:12). And after all thoughts have been gathered into one, accusing us or defending us, then all the nations and tongues will be brought together into the midst with their thoughts. And according to the apostle Paul we read of tongues not only of men but also of Angels (1 Cor 13). From which it is given us to understand that all creatures are to be judged by the Lord, not only upon the earth, but in the air and in the heavenly places, according to what he himself had said in earlier passages: My sword has been made drunk in heaven, and it shall come down upon the earth (Isa 34:5).

But I. Here he describes the manner of separation as to everyone together. And first, he decrees universal judgment: I know their works, and their thoughts, as though judging them for both; I come, in the day of judgment, or the various kingdoms of your enemies destroying also the wicked among you; they shall come, into Jerusalem after your return, either to judgment, or to faith: behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them (Joel 3:7).

"And from them I will send" the sign "to Tarshish, Tubal and Javan," and to all the other cities, which came to help the house of Gog in its fight against Zerubbabel, that is, against Christ, who was symbolized by Zerubbabel, the king of the people in its return from captivity to the land of the inheritance of the Lord. Therefore the revolt of the nations against Zerubbabel prefigured what the prophet foretold about Christ by saying, "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed."

But I come to gather their works and their thoughts together with all the nations and tongues: and they shall come and see my glory. And I will set a sign among them, and I will send of those who have been saved to the nations in the sea, to Africa, to Lydia, those who draw the arrow, to Italy and Greece, to the islands far off: to those who have not heard of me, and have not seen my glory. LXX: And I know their works and their thoughts, and I come to gather all the nations and all the tongues: and they shall come and see my glory, and I will let down a sign upon them: and I will send forth of those who have been saved to the nations, to Tharsis and Phud, and Lud and Mosoch and Thobel, and to Greece, and to the islands far off, who have not heard my name, nor seen my glory. Before I explain what the enumeration of so many nations signifies, something must be said briefly about the variety of the translations. Tharsis in the Hebrew language is the name for the sea; and also (as they say) a region of India: although Josephus, with a letter changed, thinks that Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, is named instead of Tharsis, to which Jonah, fleeing from Joppa, wished to go (Jonah 1). And Phud, or Phul, is Libya and all Africa as far as the Mauritanian sea, in which there is to this day a river called Phud, and the whole region around it is called Phutensis. And Lud they call the Lydians, whose colonists were the Etruscans, now called Tuscans, once most skilled in shooting arrows, and they are now called those who draw the arrow. For this one reads in the Hebrew MOSCHE CESETH (משכי קשת), which all, apart from the Seventy, likewise translated those who draw the bow: and the Seventy put μοσὸχ, rendering a name instead of a word. If this is accepted, it signifies the Cappadocians, whose metropolis is Mazaca, which afterwards received from Caesar Augustus the name of Caesarea. Wishing I know not what, they also in Genesis (Chapter 10) rendered as μοσὸχ the last son of Aram, that is, of the Syrians of Damascus, who is called Mes: for which we more correctly translate Maeonians. And Thubal, or Thobel, means either Italy or Iberia, that is, Spain, from the river Iberus; whence to this day a region of the Spains is called Celtiberia. Of whom Lucan finely says (Lucan, book 4): The Celts of the Gauls, mingling their name with the Iberians: whom we can call Gallo-Spaniards. And the Greeks, who in the Hebrew speech are called Javan, signify the Ionians: whence too the Greeks are called Iones, and the sea the Ionian. And this is to be considered: that he set down chiefly Eastern nations from Japheth, one of the sons of Noah: although in Tharsis and Phud he also remembered Shem and Ham, that is, the names of India and Africa, so as to show the whole world.

And all shall come to see the glory of God: and he will set a sign among them, which is shown at the beginning of Ezekiel under the interpretation of the Hebrew letter THAU (Ezek 9). He who has been stamped with this sign will escape the hand of the smiter. With this the doorposts of the houses in Egypt too were marked, when, as Egypt perished, Israel alone remained unharmed (Exod 12). Of this sign, which Ahaz king of Judah would not accept, the prophet Isaiah testifies: Therefore the Lord will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb and bear (Isa 7:14). Hence the Prophet too entreats for what had been promised: Work with me a sign for good (Ps 85 [86]:17). And in another place: You have given to those who fear you a signal, that they might flee from the face of the bow (Ps 59 [60]:4). This the Lord, ascending to the Father, left us, or set upon our foreheads, so that we might freely say: The light of your countenance has been signed upon us, O Lord (Ps 4:7). But what follows: And I will send of those who have been saved to the nations: and he enumerates them one by one, seems to be contrary to our exposition. For if it is said of the day of judgment, how does he run back again to the first coming of the Savior, when the Apostles are sent to the nations and hear from the Lord: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt 28:19)? This is resolved thus: the day of judgment is proclaimed, or rather threatened, so that through fear of the punishment to come they may receive the coming of the Savior and the Gospel of the Apostles, who are to be sent first. And he finely said: And I will send of those who have been saved (Isa 66:18). For unless the Lord had left us a seed, we would have been as Sodom, and we would have been like Gomorrah. And the Apostle: A remnant, he says, has been saved (Rom 9:27). These are sent to the nations, to Tharsis, and Phud, and Lud, and Mosoch, and Thobel, and Greece, and the very many islands that are far off, and that have not heard the name of the Lord nor seen his glory. Of these we have spoken above according to the history (cf. Isa 12). Now the anagogy must be touched upon briefly. Tharsis means the search of joy: so that we may consider not the things that are present, but those that are to come; and may deserve to hear: Because you have been faithful in a few things, you shall enter into the joy of your Lord (Matt 25:21). Of which the apostle Peter too writes: Exult with joy unspeakable and glorious (1 Pet 1:8); so that we may praise God, saying: Our mouth has been filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation (Ps 125 [126]:2). And what follows, Phud, means the shutting out of the mouth: so that, shutting out all blasphemy, we may speak the things that are good and say: My mouth shall announce your righteousness, O Lord: all the day your salvation (Ps 70 [71]:15). And again: I have not hidden your truth in my heart, and I have spoken your salvation (Ps 39 [40]:11). Lud too is rendered in our language profit, and Mosoch stretching out, and Thubal, or Thobel, led to mourning, or turned, or all things: all of which agree with the calling of the nations, that they may pursue profit through the confession of their soul, and, forgetting the things past, stretch out to the things to come. And let them mourn their ancient sins, and be drawn to mourning and to the sorrow that leads to life. For blessed are those who mourn, for they shall laugh (Matt 5). And let all be turned to the Lord, so that they may afterwards pass over to grace, and know what was said by the Apostle: Glory, and honor, and peace to everyone who works good, to the Jew first and to the Greek (Rom 2:10): since he is the God not only of the Jews but also of the nations. Further, what is said: And to the islands afar, which have not heard my name, nor seen my glory, fits those of whom we read above: Those to whom nothing was announced concerning him will see: and those who have not heard will understand (Isa 52:15). And again: I appeared to those who did not ask for me: I was found by those who did not seek me (Isa 65:1). I said: Behold, here I am, to those who did not call upon my name. And we have often said that islands signify either the nations of the whole world or the Churches scattered through the whole world.

It is with them [the apostles] that the prophecy found its accomplishment, because it was they who preached the gospel to all nations.

Second, he sets out the summons to judgment: and I will set a sign, the edict of Cyrus, among them, that is, the Jews who were with Zorobabel and the other leaders; to the Gentiles, to the nations whom the Jews had been dispersed; Lydia them that draw the bow, for they are good archers; my glory, which will appear in your liberation, above: he shall set up a sign unto the nations (Isa 11:12). Or he sets the sign of the cross on the apostles, so that they might convert all nations to God, as though prepared for judgment.

For like something consecrated to God, the host of the nations are given over to God's glory, released from all charges through faith and washed from all filth through holy baptism, like a guest's gift, as if given out of the apostolic fervor for God. On that account they rejoice, naming him their joy and crown. For that the return of the nations to God happens in an extremely comfortable fashion and without sweat and struggle is clearly declared in parabolic fashion when he speaks for our instruction, saying that "they will be led with horses, chariots, now with illuminations, now with shade.…"

And they shall announce my glory among the nations, and they shall bring all your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord, on horses, and in four-horse chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and in carriages, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord. LXX: And they shall announce my glory among the nations: and they shall bring your brothers from all the nations as a gift to the Lord, with horses and wagons, in the lampenae of mules, with canopies, into the holy city Jerusalem, says the Lord. Those who have been saved and sent to the various nations, and to those who had not heard at first nor seen the glory of the Lord, will announce it to all the nations, and will bring the brothers of the Jewish people, whose remnant has been saved, as an offering to the Lord from all the nations: either those very ones who, despising the error of idolatry, have followed the knowledge of the true God, or those of the people of Israel who have believed throughout the whole world. To these the apostle Peter too writes (1 Pet 1). And they will bring them on horses, and in four-horse chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and in carriages. For carriages, which Symmachus alone rendered, whom we have followed in this place, Aquila, the Seventy and Theodotion translated mules. And where the Seventy put with canopies, which we can render sleeping-litters or basternae, the others with one voice translated φορεῖα, which we render as vehicles of various kinds; but where the Seventy and Theodotion said lampenae, for which Symmachus rendered litters, Aquila put σκεπαστὰ, which itself also signifies litters covered with skins. Let this be said about the variety of the translations. Now the horses, and four-horse chariots, and litters, and mules and carriages, and vehicles of different kinds we can understand as Angelic ministries, of which it is said elsewhere to God: Mount upon your horses, and your riding is salvation (Hab 3:8). On these horses, chariots and four-horse chariots Elijah was snatched up to heaven, and Elisha showed his servant, who did not know it, that he was surrounded and kept safe by them (2 Kgs 2). And Zechariah saw in the night: Behold, a man mounting a red horse: and he stood among two shady mountains: and behind him red horses, and starling-colored, and dappled, and white, and I said, he says, What are these, O Lord? And the Angel who spoke in me said to me: I will show you what these are. And the man who stood among the mountains answered and said to me: These are those whom the Lord has sent to walk through the earth (Zech 1:8-10). John too in the Apocalypse testifies that he saw these things: I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse: and he who sat upon it was called faithful and true, and judging in righteousness, and a warrior. And his eyes were like a flame of fire: and upon his head were many diadems: having a name written which no one knows but himself; and he was clothed in a garment sprinkled with blood: and his name was called the Word of God: and the army in heaven followed him on white horses, clothed in white and most pure linen, and from his mouth went forth a sharp sword, that with it he might strike the nations (Rev 19:11ff.). The Lord and Savior sat upon a red horse when he took a human body; to whom it is said: Why are your garments red? And: Who is this who comes up from Edom, his garments tawny from Bozrah (Isa 63:2). And horses of various colors followed him: red in martyrdom, or starling-colored in flight, or dappled in virtues, or white in virginity. And he sat upon a white horse when after the resurrection he took an immortal and incorrupt body. And whoever followed him used white horses, that is, incorrupt and immortal bodies. It would be long if we wished to explain both testimonies: this only I will say, that the various vehicles by which men are brought to faith are Angels, or holy men who have advanced from men to Angels. And that each of us has Angels many Scriptures teach, among which is this: Do not despise one of these least ones: for their Angels daily see the face of the Father who is in heaven (Matt 18:10). And when the girl Rhoda announced the apostle Peter, others believed it was his Angel (Acts 12). But if this is said of the least, and of one man, how much more is it to be thought of all the saints, and especially of the Apostles, whose Angels daily see the face of the Father, according to what is written? The Angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him (Ps 33 [34]:8). And Jacob speaks of himself: The Angel who delivered me. These are they who ascend and descend upon the son of man. Those who are swift in faith are carried on horses; those who are manifold in grace, in four-horse chariots; those who need consolation, in covered litters and under canopies, so that they may deserve to hear: The sun shall not burn you by day, nor the moon by night (Ps 120 [121]:6). And mules we take in two ways in the holy Scriptures: either in respect of sterility and continence, such as David and Solomon sat upon, of whom the one means strong of hand, the other peaceable; or in the bad sense, of which it is said: Do not become like the horse and the mule, which have no understanding (Ps 31 [32]:9); over which Doeg was set (1 Sam 21). And the carriages, for which (as we said above) the Seventy translated covered vehicles, the rest simply vehicles, are to be understood as those of whom the Apostle speaks: Bear one another's burdens (Gal 6:2). Further, the lampenae are to be understood as the shining bodies of the saints, and souls illuminated by faith in the Lord, to whom it can be said: You are the light of the world (Matt 5:14). And all this equipage serves this purpose: that we may enter the holy city of God, or the holy mountain of the Lord, Jerusalem: not that which kills the Prophets and stones those sent to her; but the heavenly Jerusalem, of which we have often said: But the Jerusalem that is above is free, which is our mother (Gal 4:26). And again: But you have come to Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22). This we can understand either of the present Church, which has been gathered throughout the world by the Apostles, or of the future, so that what the Apostle prophesied by the Holy Spirit may be fulfilled: We shall be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord (1 Thess 4:16). The Jews, and the heirs of the Jewish error, the Ebionites, who took the name of poor from the lowliness of their understanding, and all who await the delights of the thousand years, understand the horses and four-horse chariots, and wagons, and litters, or basternae, and sleeping-litters, and male and female mules, and carriages, and vehicles of different kinds just as they are written. Namely, that at the consummation of the world, when Christ has come to reign at Jerusalem, and the Temple has been restored, and the Jewish victims have been sacrificed, the sons of Israel are to be brought back from the whole world, by no means on horses, but on mules of Numidia. And those who have been of senatorial rank and have held the place of princes are to come in carriages from the Britons, the Spaniards, the Gauls and the Morini, the farthest of men (Virgil, Aeneid 8, so calls the Morini), and from where the two-horned Rhine is divided, with all the nations, which will have been made ready for their service, coming out to meet them.

As if the sons of Israel should bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will take of them for priests and Levites, says the Lord. LXX: As if the sons of Israel should offer their victims to me with Psalms in the house of the Lord: and of them I will take priests and Levites, says the Lord. Those who have been sent to the nations, he says, and have announced my glory to them, will bring your brothers from all the nations as an offering to the Lord, with horses, and four-horse chariots, and litters, and mules, and carriages, and various vehicles, to the holy mountain Jerusalem, in the same way as the sons of Israel used, while their religion stood and the ceremonies of the Temple were kept, to offer victims with Psalms in the house of the Lord. Or, as it stands in the Hebrew, and all translated with one voice, in a clean vessel: which the sons of Israel who behold God with the mind offer even to this day in the House of God, which is the Church: spiritual victims, with the fruits and virtues of their soul, in clean vessels, that is, in holy bodies. Of these the Apostle writes: Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and the Holy Spirit dwells in you (1 Cor 3:16)?

Third, he sets out the preparation of those to be judged. And first, as to the good; second, as to the wicked: and they shall go out, and see (Isa 66:22). The first of these is divided into two parts. First, as to the Jews, he sets out their honorable return: and they shall bring all your brethren out upon horses, by which are signified the reinforcements they reverently received from the gentiles: the Lord will bring them to you (Bar 5:6); or by which are signified the various conditions of those who are converted to the faith, as the Gloss explains.

"And I will take from them priests and Levites." From whom? This is not yet so clear, meaning either those sent to call them out from the nations or from those who were thus called out. For the divine disciples served through Christ as priests. But many were called to the priesthood, and many are still called who are of Greek stock, once God has changed them into the newness of life and knowledge.

And I will take, he says, of them priests and Levites, says the Lord: so that those who have been saved may preach to the nations. One of these said: So let a man reckon us as ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God (1 Cor 4:1). And Luke the evangelist: As they delivered to us, he says, who from the beginning saw and were ministers of the word. Of these we also read above: You shall be to me priests of the Lord (Isa 61:6). For as he is a Jew in secret who is circumcised in spirit (Rom 2), of whom it is written: We are the Circumcision, who serve God in spirit (Phil 3:3), and we offer spiritual victims pleasing to God, and sing psalms with the spirit and with the understanding: so too they are priests and Levites in secret who follow not the line of descent but the order of faith. Or certainly he does not speak of the Apostles and apostolic men, who were the princes of the Church from the people of the Jews, but of the nations enumerated above: from the sea, from Africa, from Libya, from Cappadocia, from Italy, from Greece, from all the islands, whose inhabitants at first had not heard the Lord nor seen his glory, and afterwards will be turned into priests, so that those who had been the tail may be the head, and those who were the head may be turned into the tail.

Second, the exaltation of their return, first, as to their worthiness: and I will take of them to be priests, which was literally fulfilled in the Jews, and also in the apostles, above: you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to you it shall be said: you ministers of our God (Isa 61:6).

This is the immovable hope that Christ promises in all goodness to those who love him and who acknowledged his epiphany. As it says, "When I remake the heaven and the earth, I will allow them to remain, and no passing of time will destroy them." So your seed and your name will stand before me. For we are the new heaven and the new earth and his promised things, just as they are written about. For the hope of the saints will stand forever and endures, as Paul confirms. …

For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I make to stand before me, says the Lord: so shall your seed stand, and your name. And it shall be month from month, and sabbath from sabbath: all flesh shall come to worship before my face, says the Lord. LXX: For as the new heaven and the new earth, which I make to remain in my sight, says the Lord: so shall your seed stand and your name. And it shall be month from month, and sabbath from sabbath: all flesh shall come to worship the Lord in my sight in Jerusalem. When he says: I will take of them for priests and Levites, he shows that the old priesthood has been set aside, which was owed to the tribe of Levi, where there is no choice but the order of nature, and a line of family descending through posterity. For when the priesthood is changed, there must of necessity be a change of the Law as well, and the choice belongs to those on whom the priesthood is conferred by no means according to blood, but according to merits and virtues, who will come from the islands of the nations and will announce the glory of the Lord. And they shall be brought on horses, and in four-horse chariots, and in litters, and on mules, and in carriages. And as there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and a new Jerusalem, so that it is by no means said: Heaven and earth shall pass away (Matt 24:35). And again: The heaven shall be rolled up like a book: and the earth shall be scattered by corruption (Rev 6:14): so, with all things new, the people of God too will become new, as Scripture says: The old things have passed away: behold, all things have become new (Isa 43:19). And in another place: If anyone is a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). And there will be a new people too; for Christ is the firstfruits, then those who are Christ's, at his coming: and a new heaven and earth, of which it is said among the eight beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth (Matt 5:3, 4). For every creature is now subject to vanity in hope, because of him who subjected it (Rom 8). But they shall be set free from the servitude of corruption into the glory of the sons of God, who from men will become his sons, and will stand always in his sight, and their name will remain continually, so that no other nation succeeds them, as happened in the case of the Jews; but they will remain forever.

Second, as to the preservation of their seed: for as the new heavens, as above, so shall your seed stand (Isa 65:17), forever: if these ordinances shall fail before me, says the Lord: then also the seed of Israel shall fail (Jer 31:36); or the saints will stand eternally renewed as heaven and earth.

And it shall be, he says, month from month, and sabbath from sabbath: so that out of carnal sabbaths and months there may come spiritual and delightful sabbaths, which sabbath-rest is reserved for the people of God. And a spiritual month, when the moon is filled from point to point and runs its course, so as to make a month, that is, the kalends, which in Greek are called νεομηνίαι, that is, the beginning of a new month; among whom the beginning of the kalends begins and ends not according to the course of the sun and the different lengths of the months, but according to the circuit of the moon. This is the moon of which it is said in praise of the true Solomon: And he shall remain with the sun and before the moon, for generations of generations (Ps 71 [72]:5). She is called the chosen one in the Song of Songs: Who is this who has come forth like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, and chosen as the sun, wonderful (Song 6:9)? The physicists, and those whose concern it is to discuss the heavenly bodies, say that the moon does not have its own light but is illuminated by the rays of the sun. For it is always filled and shines on that part of its orb by which it is nearer to the sun, and is not darkened by the shadow of the earth: which the poet too showed in one little verse (Virgil, Georgics 1): Nor does the moon rise beholden to her brother's rays.

If this is true, we too can say tropologically that the Church, which grows and wanes in peace and in persecutions, and, when oppressed by the darkness of temptations, takes up again her former light, has her splendor from the sun of righteousness, and that this is what is said: The moon shall shine like the sun (Isa 30:26); and that her righteous inhabitants shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. And that through these months the seed of the Lord, which has been restored forever, comes to its solemnities, which the saint sounded forth with mystical mouth, saying: I had the eternal years in mind, and I meditated (Ps 76 [77]:6). Of the sabbath, which signifies rest, we have treated in full discourse (cf. Isa 56), in the prophecy of the eunuchs and strangers. And now it must be said briefly that those come at the new moons and on the sabbaths who, having passed beyond and left behind the six days in which the world was made, hasten to the seventh day, that is, the sabbath, in which there is true rest. About these solemnities the apostle Paul instructed believers, saying: For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come (Heb 10:1). And again: Let no one, then, judge you in food or in drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths, which are shadows of things to come (Col 2:16). But if these things went before in the shadow of good things to come, and in an image, the whole law is to be understood spiritually, of which the same Apostle said: We know that the law is spiritual (Rom 7:14), whose mysteries David too longed to know: Unveil my eyes, and I will consider the wonders of your law (Ps 118 [119]:18). For the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal (2 Cor 4). To run through all of these in a quick discussion does not belong to this time. For if eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have they entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those who love him (1 Cor 2), how do we attempt to show the whole Law, like a description of the whole world, on a small tablet? And as for what follows: All flesh shall come to worship in my sight in Jerusalem, it should be known that in the Hebrew Jerusalem is not written, so that we may strike down the haughtiness of the Jews; but only in my sight, so that the word of the Lord may be fulfilled, who says in the Gospel: Amen, amen I say to you, the hour will come when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father (John 4:21). And again: God is spirit. And those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth (ibid. 24). And that saying of the Apostle: Lifting up holy hands in every place (1 Tim 2:8). And all flesh signifies not the people of the Jews but the whole race of men, according to what was said above: All flesh shall see your salvation (Isa 40:5). And in Joel: I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy (Joel 2:28). And in Zechariah: Let all flesh fear before the face of the Lord (Zech 2:13). And in the Psalms: To you all flesh shall come (Ps 64 [65]:2). Which is said in other words in another psalm: All the nations which you have made shall come and worship in your sight, and shall glorify your name, O Lord (Ps 85 [86]:9). Month from month, and sabbath from sabbath, in which all flesh shall come to worship God, the χιλιασταὶ, whom we can call Millenarians, interpret ridiculously: that those who are near shall come to Jerusalem every sabbath; those farther off, by months, that is, when the cycle of the kalends is completed; those very far off, every year, that is, on the days of the Pasch or of Tabernacles, according to what is said in Zechariah: Going up from year to year, to worship the Lord, the king of hosts, and to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles (Zech 14:16). And to offer a greater laugh to their hearers, what is written in the last part of the same prophet's volume: And there shall be no more a merchant in the house of the Lord of hosts in that day, they interpret thus: that traders will cease to exist in the thousand years, because all things will grow in all places, so that, namely, neither shall we need malabathrum leaf, amomum and pepper, nor shall the Indians want pennyroyal from us.

Third, as to the duration of their glory: and there shall be month after month, as if to say, month will follow month and feast will follow feast in your prosperity, above: year is added to year: the solemnities are at an end (Isa 29:1). Mystically: the Church after the end, spiritual rest after carnal rest.

Second, as to the gentiles, and all flesh shall come, for from the various nations they came to Jerusalem to adore the Lord: all the nations shall come and adore before you, O Lord (Ps 85[86]:9); or in the day of judgment.

If heaven and earth are renewed, how can we doubt the possibility of our renewal, for whom heaven and earth were made? If the transgressor is kept for punishment, why should not the just person be preserved for glory? If the worm of sinners does not die, how shall the flesh of the just perish? For the resurrection, as the very form of the word indicates, is this: What has fallen shall rise again, what has died shall live again.

To this torment of fire will be joined torment according to all the senses; joined to it will be the punishment of the worm and the deprivation of the vision of God, so that in these punishments there will be variety, and with variety severity, and with severity endlessness.

In every actual mortal sin there is a disordered aversion from the highest light and goodness, and an inordinate conversion to a changeable good, and a disorder of the will against the dictate of right reason: hence it is that all who actually sin and will be damned shall be punished with a threefold punishment: on account of their aversion, the deprivation of the vision of God; on account of their conversion, the punishment of material fire; on account of the conflict between will and reason, the punishment of the worm: so that thus afflicted by this multiplicity of punishments they may be tormented both variously and bitterly and eternally, and the smoke of their torments may ascend forever and ever.

These misfortunes piled on the Jews are meant to be the things we say happened to them at the hands of the Romans, when the temple was destroyed and all were subjected to cruel slaughter. For suffering such things they became a spectacle for all, but their suffering was not prolonged indefinitely. Yet this is what perhaps is meant when it says, "Their worm will not die nor the fire go out." Some, however, want to refer these words concerning them to the time of the end of the age.… In any case, Christ will deliver us from all such things, through whom and with whom may glory be to God the Father and the Holy Spirit forever.

And they shall go forth, and see the corpses of the men who have transgressed against me. Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched. And they shall be a sight to the full for all flesh. LXX likewise. All flesh that is to worship in the sight of the Lord, whether in the heavenly Jerusalem or in every place in which clean hands are lifted up, will go forth to see the corpses of the dead men who have transgressed against God. This can be understood either of the Jews, of whom it was said: I have begotten and exalted sons: but they have despised me; or of all who, having the knowledge of God in their hearts, have turned aside to vanity, so as to worship the creature rather than the Creator. And they will go forth not in place, but in understanding. For the corpses of the dead cannot be within with the Lord. But if all flesh is to worship the Lord, and, on the contrary, the corpses of the men who have transgressed against the Lord are to be handed over to eternal burnings, on both sides there will be a resurrection of real flesh. And the worm that shall not die, and the fire that shall not be quenched, are taken by most as the conscience of sins, which tortures those placed in punishments: because by their own vice and sin they have lost the good of the elect, according to what is said: I have been turned in misery, while the thorn is fastened in me (Ps 31 [32]:4). And in Proverbs: An understanding heart is a moth of the bones (Prov 25:20). And again, under the obelus: As a moth to a garment, and a worm to wood: so sorrow tortures the heart of a man (ibid.). Provided only that they do not deny the eternal punishments of transgressors and of those who deny the Lord, since the Lord says in the Gospel: Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt 25:41). And in another place: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt 22:13). If we hear of hands and feet, and of outer darkness, which is the punishment of eyes that do not see the light of God; and of weeping, which itself too certainly belongs to the eyes; and of gnashing of teeth: I am amazed that some bring in after the resurrection an airy body, to be dissolved little by little into thin air, because the Lord, by the power of his majesty, came in to the Apostles when the doors were shut (John 20). He who certainly, even before the resurrection, walked upon the sea with a hovering step, and granted this very thing to the apostle Peter, so that he who walked by faith afterwards sank through unbelief; to whom it was said: Why did you doubt, you of little faith (Matt 14:31)? The fire too is to be taken in the same way as the worm: it burns as long as it has matter on which the devouring flame may feed. If anyone, then, has in his conscience the tares which the enemy sowed over while the householder slept, these too the fire will burn up, these the burning will devour (Matt 13). And before the eyes of all the Saints their punishments will be shown, who instead of gold and silver and precious stone have built upon the foundation of the Lord hay, wood, stubble, the fodder of everlasting fire. Further, those who want punishments to end at some time, and torments, though after long ages, still to have a limit, use these testimonies: When the fullness of the nations has come in, then all Israel shall be saved (Rom 11:25). And again: God has shut up all things under sin, that he may have mercy on all (Gal 3:22). And in another place the saint says: I will bear the anger of the Lord, because I have sinned against him; until he justifies my cause, and takes away my judgment, and brings me out into the light (Mic 7:9). And again: I will bless you, O Lord, because you were angry with me. You turned your face away from me, and you have had mercy on me (Isa 12:1). The Lord too speaks to the sinner: When the anger of my fury has passed, I will heal again (Ps 30 [31]:20). And this is what is said in another place: How great is the multitude of your goodness, O Lord, which you have hidden for those who fear you. All these they unfold, wishing to assert that after torments and tortures there will be refreshments to come, which must now be hidden from those for whom fear is useful: so that, while they dread punishments, they may cease to sin. This we ought to leave to the knowledge of God alone, whose not only mercies but torments too are in the balance, and who knows whom, how, and for how long he ought to judge. And let us say only what befits human frailty: O Lord, do not rebuke me in your fury, nor chasten me in your wrath (Ps 6:1; 37 [38]:1). And as we believe that the torments of the devil, and of all deniers and impious men who have said in their heart: There is no God (Ps 13 [14]:1), are eternal: so we hold that the sentence of the judge upon sinners and impious men who are nonetheless Christians, whose works are to be tried and purged in the fire, will be moderate and mixed with clemency (1 Cor 3:13).

If … we have any sense of our own salvation, let us, while we still have time, abandon evil ways, concern ourselves with virtue and despise vainglory.

As people who have cut your souls off from this hope, it is necessary that you know how to obtain pardon of your sins and a hope of sharing in the promised blessings. There is no other way than this, that you come to know our Christ, be baptized with the baptism that cleanses you from sin (as Isaiah testified) and thus live a life free of sin.

And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. [Isaiah 66:24] For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another.

Let us then study to fix the fear of God in our mind, and let us meditate thereupon by day and by night. If the fire of lust kindleth in us, let us set in opposition thereto the fire of Gehenna. If greediness of the belly seize upon us, let us remember the worm which dieth not. If the beauty of the face excite us, let us remember the outer darkness. If the love of mammon fight against us, let us call to mind our own unworthiness. If human benefits stir us, let us be afraid lest we lose the kingdom which abideth for ever. If wrath attacketh us with its violent onset, let us look at the threat of God against those who provoke to wrath. If vainglory raise a tumult within us, let us bring up in our minds the disgrace and contempt [which we shall feel] before our Judge. By fear let us make fear of none effect, and by death let us vanquish death.

Just as I will transform all that is seen and will produce a new creation, so I will guard your memory forever—and not yours alone but all those who have believed through you.… He mentions a description of the city and the various dwellings of which the Lord said, "With my father there are many mansions," that is, levels of worthiness. He means those continually rejoicing and singing in choirs … he has displayed by that the everlastingness of the chastisement, for the fire is inextinguishable and the worm immortal. With this chastisement he has threatened them, and not them alone but also those who infringe on his divine laws. Finally, therefore, so as not to partake of this chastisement with them, let us avoid partaking of their iniquity; for thus we will join the chorus of those who are in joy.

And they shall go out. Here he sets out the following judgment as to the wicked. And first, the manifestation of the punishment: and they shall go out, coming to Jerusalem, and see, in the ancient sepulchers, and in the fields, the bones of their dead fathers, above: their slain shall be cast forth, and out of their carcasses shall rise a stink (Isa 34:3); or the saints will see the damned falling into damnation. Second, he sets out the duration of the punishment: their worm, of conscience, by which they will be tortured even when they are dead, and their fire, of hell: he will give fire, and worms into their flesh (Jdt 16:21[17]). Third, the delight from the punishments, as to those who see it: and they shall be a satisfying sight to all flesh, that is, to the saints: the just shall rejoice when he shall see the revenge (Ps 57:11[58:10]).