Joel 1

The order of the twelve prophets among the Seventy translators is not the same as that which is kept in the Hebrew truth. For they put Amos second, Micah third, Joel fourth, Obadiah fifth, Jonah sixth, Nahum seventh, Habakkuk eighth, Zephaniah ninth, Haggai tenth, Zechariah eleventh, Malachi twelfth; but the Hebrews, after Hosea, who is first among both, read Joel second, Amos third, Obadiah fourth, Jonah fifth, Micah sixth, Nahum seventh, Habakkuk eighth, Zephaniah ninth, Haggai tenth, Zechariah eleventh, and twelfth, who is also the last, Malachi. And since we have once enumerated all the prophets of the one volume, it seems useful to us to note briefly the ἐτυμολογίας (etymologies) of each, both in Greek and in Latin. Hosea means σώζων, whom we can call one who saves. Joel ἀρχόμενος, that is, beginning. Amos βαστάζων, which among the Latins is called carrying. Obadiah δοῦλος Κυρίου, that is, servant of the Lord. Jonah περιστερὰ, that is, dove. Micah τίς ὡς, a name composed of two parts of speech, which with us sounds who as, or who like? Nahum παράκλησις, that is, consolation. Habakkuk περιλαμβάνων, that is, embracing or wrestling. Zephaniah κεκρυμμένος Κυρίου, that is, the hidden one of the Lord. Haggai, ἑορτάζων, whom we can call festive or solemn. Zechariah μνήμη Κυρίου, that is, remembrance of the Lord. Malachi ἄγγελός μου, that is, my messenger. In what sense all these are to be taken will be discussed in their own volumes. But the four remaining prophets, that we may complete sixteen, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, have this meaning: Isaiah is called σωτηρία Κυρίου, that is, salvation of the Lord; Ezekiel κράτος Κυρίου, which we can call the strength or the dominion of the Lord; Jeremiah ὑψηλὸς Κυρίου, that is, the exalted one of the Lord; Daniel ἔκρινέ με Κύριος, that is, the Lord has judged me. Since these things are so, I beseech you, my Pammachius, who fight against the devil with every art of combat, that, while we fight against Amalek, you lift up your hands to the Lord with Moses, and overcome the adversaries of Israel by your prayers. We have lately come out of Egypt, and, Pharaoh having been drowned in Hosea, we have crossed the Red Sea; now, after the broad waste of the desert, we must sweat with much labor, that we may be able to reach the seventy palms and the apostolic springs. Though the scorpion rise up and try to strike with its arched wound, you, companion of the journey and charmer of venomous bites, show yourself a spiritual ψυλλέα (a Psyllian, a snake-charmer) for us; and what we promised to the holy and venerable Paula, your mother-in-law, take up as a dutiful heir; and whatever we can do less than your expectation, whether in talent or in learning, sustain with a friend's favor, and do not consider in us our strength, but our will.

The word of the Lord which was made to Joel, the son of Phatuel. The Seventy translators rendered Bathuel for Phatuel, which in Hebrew has no meaning at all. But Phatuel is rendered into our language as breadth of God, or God opening, as we read in Mark that the Savior said to the deaf and dumb man: Ephpheta, which is, be opened. For since he could say with the Apostle: Our mouth is open to you, O Corinthians, our heart is enlarged, and heard from the Lord: Make wide your mouth, and I will fill it; and since this very opening of the mouth is not in the power of man but in the power of God, as Paul says: A great and evident door has been opened to me; but there are many adversaries; therefore he is called God opening. And since the saint always makes progress, knowing in part and prophesying in part, until that which is perfect comes, he who is begotten of breadth and opening is called Joel, which in our language means beginning, or is God, as the Apostle says: Brothers, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it; and growing by this humility he deserves to hear with Moses: He who is, has sent me. For by way of distinction from those who are not, of whom we read also in Esther: Do not hand over your scepter to those who are not, God and his saints are said to be. Let these things about the name of Joel and of his father be touched on briefly, so that the word of God, which was in the beginning with God, may rightly be said to have been made, as John the Baptist relates: He who is to come after me was made before me, because he was before me. Moreover, that the word was made is referred to the merit of him to whom it is made, not to the condition of him who is said to be made, as we read elsewhere: The Lord was made salvation for me. And just as in the prophet Hosea, whom we expounded before this book at the beginning of the Twelve Prophets, where the prophecy is directed under the name of Ephraim to the ten tribes, which are often called either Samaria or Israel, so in Joel, who according to the Hebrews is the second, everything that is said must be believed to pertain to the tribe of Judah and to Jerusalem, and no mention at all is made in him of Israel, that is, of the ten tribes. We must also take the times in which he prophesied to be the same as those we read in Hosea: In the days of Uzziah, Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam, son of Joash, king of Israel.

Hear this, old men, and perceive with your ears, all inhabitants of the earth, if this has happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers; tell of this to your sons, and your sons to their sons, and their sons to another generation. LXX: Hear these things, old men, and perceive with your ears, all inhabitants of the earth, if such things have happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers; for these things, tell your sons, and your sons their sons, and their sons to another generation. The old men are commanded to hear, the inhabitants of the earth to perceive with their ears. To the old men it is not said: Hear, all; to the inhabitants of the earth is added: Perceive with your ears, all. But hearing in the holy Scriptures is not that which sounds in the ear, but that which is perceived by the heart, according to what the Lord says in the Gospel: He who has ears to hear, let him hear. But what we have translated as Perceive with your ears is one word both among the Greeks and among the Hebrews: among the Greeks ἐνωτίσασθε, among the Hebrews eezinu, which properly is perceived not by the heart but by the ear. And so that we may know that hearing is more sacred than that which sounds in the ears, let us learn it from Isaiah, who says: Hear, O heaven, and perceive with your ears, O earth. Those who are old men and heavenly hear spiritually; those who dwell on the earth and are called earthly perceive with their ears. And this must be noted in all the Scriptures where these two words are placed together. We read this also in the case of Lamech, the sinner, who spoke to his wives Adah and Zillah: Hear my words, wives of Lamech, perceive my words with your ears, for I have killed a man to my wounding, and a young man to my bruising; he knew that what he was saying was obscure, and therefore he called his wives not only to the simple sound of the words, but also to the hidden understanding of what was said. If, then, anyone is an old man, and an old man chosen of ripe age in the Lord, as we read further on according to the Seventy translators, and has left behind the infancy of little children, let him hear what is said. But he who still dwells on the earth, and cannot say: I am a stranger and a sojourner, like all my fathers, let him perceive with his ears. If this has happened, he says, in your days, or in the days of your fathers. With rhetorical art he makes the hearer attentive by the greatness of the matter. No age, he says, remembers the things I am about to say; they did not happen in your time, nor in the time of your fathers and forebears. But by fathers understand grandfathers and remote ancestors, and by sons the sons of sons, all the offspring that follow, according to that Vergilian line: And the sons of sons, and those who will be born of them.

But these same villains, vessels of wrath fitted for destruction,2 screwed up their noses and poured out, if I may say so, as from a well-head, foul noises through their nostrils and rent the raiment from Christ's holy virgins, whose conversation gave an exact likeness of saints. They dragged them in triumph, naked as when they were born, through all the town. They made indecent sport of them at their pleasure. Their deeds were barbarous and cruel. Anyone who interfered in pity and was urged to mercy was dismissed with wounds. Ah! Woe is me. Many a virgin underwent brutal violation. Many a maid beaten on the head with clubs lay dumb. Even their bodies were not allowed to be given up for burial. Their grief-stricken parents cannot find their corpses to this day. But why recount woes that seem small when compared with greater? Why linger over these and not hurry on to events more urgent? When you hear them, I know that you will wonder and will stand with us long dumb, amazed at the kindness of the Lord in not bringing all things utterly to an end. At the very altar the impious perpetrated the very things that, as Joel had prophesied, were never heard of and had never happened before in the days of our fathers.

Therefore, both old men and inhabitants of the earth, tell it to your sons and to your posterity: let him who is an old man teach his children the mysteries; let him who is an inhabitant of the earth tell the simple history. Hence to this very day we who believe in Christ, from whose eyes the veil has been taken away with Moses, and of whom it is said: The gray hairs of a man are his wisdom, tell our sons things secret and wonderful. But the Jews, who dwell on the earth, speak earthly things that cling to the ground, of whom it is written: He who is of the earth speaks of the earth; he who comes from heaven is above all.

We certainly know that in clouds of smoke, when some are fading away above, others rise up from below. So too in carnal thoughts, though some evil desires pass away, yet others succeed. But frequently the wretched mind beholds what has already passed but does not behold where it is still detained. It rejoices in being no longer subject to some sins but neglects to be careful and to lament because others have succeeded in their place, to which perhaps it yields more sinfully. And so it is that while some sins pass away and others succeed, the heart of the reprobate is possessed without intermission by this serpent. Therefore it is well said by the prophet Joel: "That which the palmer-worm has left, the locust has eaten; and that which the locust has left, the canker-worm has eaten; and that which the canker-worm has left, the mildew has eaten."

The mashota ("cutting locust") is similar to a larva. It is black and longer than a larva; when it falls to the ground, it does not destroy completely the plant but devours just the leaves and does not touch the rest. Through it the prophet signifies Tiglath-pileser, because the troubles that he caused to the people of Israel were mild. He calls Shalmaneser the flying locust, because the destruction that he caused was more serious than that by Tiglath-pileser. He calls zahla the crawling locust, which does not fly and feeds on everything. He signifies through it Sennacherib, because he surpasses his predecessor in the ruin caused and brings about the annihilation of ten tribes. The sarsoura creeps on the ground and is only equipped with a sting; when it strikes the roots of a tree, any tree it finds, it immediately withers. And he signifies through it Nebuchadnezzar, the cause of total destruction. He calls vines the common people, fig trees the important persons, whom the Assyrians and Babylonians deported in captivity. Hanana says "the vines" represent the ten tribes; "the fig trees" the house of Judah. When the Assyrians were about to come, Ezekiah sent some of the Levites to the ten tribes, before they could be destroyed. They blew the trumpet throughout the land and gathered men and women into the temple of Jerusalem, so that all prayers might be said in the temple; and a prayer more fervent than any other was said. And the prophet relating what they said through their prayer says: "Alas, alas, for the fateful day. The heifers have been roasted," that is, they have been burned by an atrocious hunger as by a fire. "The fire has devoured, that is, a fierce heat, the pastures of the wilderness." He uses [this name] for those places suitable for sowing, which many call "farms." Others say, "fertile land or places which face the south," that is, estates which are turned to the sun.

The twelve prophets whose writings are compressed within the narrow limits of a single volume have symbolic, typical meanings far beyond their literal ones. Hosea speaks many times of Ephraim, of Samaria, of Joseph of Jezreel, of a wife of whoredoms and of children of whoredoms, of an adulterous woman shut up within the chamber of her husband, sitting for a long time in widowhood and in the garb of mourning awaiting the time when her husband will return to her. Joel the son of Pethuel describes the land of the twelve tribes as spoiled and devastated by the palmerworm, the cankerworm, the locust and the blight, and he predicts that after the overthrow of the former people the Holy Spirit shall be poured out upon God's servants and handmaids. This is the same spirit that was to be poured out in the upper chamber at Zion upon the 120 believers.

What the caterpillar left, the locust has eaten, and what the locust left, the cankerworm has eaten, and what the cankerworm left, the blight has eaten. LXX: likewise. The narration follows the exordium: there, to make the hearer attentive, he promised that he would say great and incredible things, which neither ancient history knew nor the present age knew to have happened. Here he has set down the caterpillar, and the locust, and the cankerworm, and the blight, so that things each of which rarely happens may be recorded as having happened all at once, and may therefore be wonderful. The caterpillar, which in Hebrew is called gezem, in Greek κάμπη, the Hebrews interpret as the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Chaldeans, who, coming forth from one region of the world, laid waste everything belonging to the ten tribes as well as to the two, that is, to the Israelite people. The locust they interpret as the Medes and Persians, who, after the overthrow of the empire of the Chaldeans, held the Jews captive. The cankerworm, as the Macedonians and all the successors of Alexander, and above all King Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes, who settled in Judea like a cankerworm and devoured all the remnants left by the former kings, under whom the wars of the Maccabees are recounted. The blight they refer to the empire of the Romans, who, fourth and last, so oppressed the Jews as to drive them out of their own territory. Josephus writes of it more fully in seven volumes, recounting the triumphs of Vespasian and Titus. We read also of the expedition of Aelius Hadrian against the Jews, who so overthrew Jerusalem and its walls that out of the remains and ashes of the city he founded a city named Aelia after himself. These four kingdoms which overthrew Judea Zechariah writes that he saw in four horns, the angel saying to him: These are the horns which have scattered Judah and Israel and Jerusalem. And again: I lifted up, he says, my eyes and saw; and behold, four chariots coming out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of bronze; in the first chariot, red horses; and in the second chariot, black horses; and in the third chariot, white horses; and in the fourth chariot, dappled, strong horses. And when the prophet had said to the angel who spoke in him: What are these, my lord? The angel answered: These are the four winds of heaven, which go forth to stand before the ruler of all the earth; and the sense is: These are they who go forth from the face of the Lord, to fulfill his will. Since with the inhabitants of the earth we perceive with our ears what the caterpillar, the locust, the cankerworm and the blight signify, let us now hear with the old men what has been said. All the schools of the philosophers cry out together that there are four perturbations by which the health of souls is overthrown. Two are present and contrary to one another, two are future and at variance with each other. The present ones are distress and joy. We say distress of the mind; otherwise, of the body it is called not distress but illness. Either, then, we are sad and consumed with grief, and the state of our mind is overturned; whence the Apostle also warns that a brother should not be swallowed up by too much sorrow. Or, on the contrary, we rejoice and exult with gladness, and cannot bear our good things with moderation; and it belongs to a just and brave man neither to be broken by adversity nor to be lifted up by prosperity, but to be moderate in both. We have spoken of the perturbation of present things; let us speak also of that of future things, in which there is fear or hope. We fear adverse things, we await prosperous ones; and what distress and joy work in the present, fear and hope do concerning the future, while we either fear more than is fitting that adverse things are to come, or the prosperous things we hope for make us exult so much that we do not keep measure, especially in things that are uncertain, because future things are hoped for rather than held. These perturbations the illustrious poet comprehended in one little verse, and that not even a full one: These fear and desire — this of the future —, grieve and rejoice — this of the present —, nor, he says, do they look up at the air, shut in darkness and a blind prison.

For those who are wrapped in the darkness of the perturbations cannot behold the clear light of wisdom. We must beware, then, lest distress, like the caterpillar, eat us; lest the locust lay us waste in joy, flitting here and there, and tossing itself in different directions with exultant gladness; lest the cankerworm, that is, dread and fear of things to come, devour the roots of wisdom; lest the blight, the desire of things to come, covet useless things and carry us off to ruin; but that in all things we may govern with the reins of wisdom the four chariots and the four horns, and the four horses, red, and dappled, and white, and black, that is, adverse things, or prosperous ones, or those joined from both. I think that the caterpillar is the passion beginning in the mind, which is slow and cannot run about, and by its very lingering and persistence drinks up and sucks out all the greenness; and if we do not kill it, it grows in us and flies off, and now it devours whatever it has touched; now, leaving things half-eaten, it goes on to others, and returning to its former seat it becomes the cankerworm, so that by its slowness it devours not only the crops and the leaves and the bark, but even the very pith. But if it happens, though this is rare, that even after the cankerworm something of the vital spirit remains in us, the blight ravages everything, so that it turns the stubble and the worthless hay to blackness, so that they are useless not only for food but even for dung. Of these four perturbations we shall discourse also at the beginning of Amos, if life remains our companion, where it is written: For three crimes, and for four, of Damascus, Gaza, Tyre, Idumea, the sons of Ammon, and Moab, and Judah, and Israel, I will not turn them back, says the Lord. What we have rendered as perturbations the Greeks call πάθη; if we render these κακοζήλως (affectedly) as passions, we shall have expressed the word rather than the sense of the word.

For although the Lord has granted strong cattle, bodily health, a successful outcome to every activity and prosperous deeds, prayer must still be offered lest, as it is written, there be "a heaven of brass and an earth of iron" and lest "the swarming locust eat what the cutting locust has left, and the caterpillar devour what the swarming locust has left, and the blight consume what the caterpillar has left." Not in this alone does the effort of the toiling farmer stand in need of divine assistance. [His effort] must also fend off unexpected accidents by which, even if a field is loaded with the desired fruitful yield, he will not only be frustrated by waiting in vain for what he has hoped for but will even be deprived of the abundant crop that has already been harvested and that is stored on the threshing floor or in the barn.

In a figurative manner he wants to convey to them the impending troubles; as always, the earlier ones are surpassed by those coming later. Tiglath-pileser, king of the Assyrians, came like a cutting locust, he is saying, and laid waste no small proportion of your possessions. After him Shalmaneser [came] like some kind of locust further ravaging your goods. After them Sennacherib [came] like a young locust wreaking general destruction on the twelve tribes of Israel. Like some kind of blight in addition to these came the attack of the Babylonian, who took the people of Judah as well and inflicted the evil of captivity on all in common.

What a servile mentality from a crazed brain that knows how to do nothing else but gabble. We must reply to our opponents, "You are drunken men; rouse yourselves from your cups." Why do you do such violence to the truth? Why have you twisted the sense of the divine teachings so as to have been carried off the royal road?

Wake up, you drunkards; and weep and howl, all you who drink wine in sweetness, because it has perished from your mouth. LXX: Awake, you who are drunk with your wine; and wail and lament, all you who drink wine in drunkenness, because it has been taken away from your mouth. As old men and elders we ought to hear: nothing so makes one drunk as the perturbation of the mind. There is a sorrow that leads to death: this is a drunkenness to be abhorred. There is an anger that does not work the righteousness of God, and, being very near to madness, it makes a man not master of his own mind, so much that the lips tremble, the teeth chatter, the face changes with pallor. And rightly is that saying of Archytas of Tarentum praised, who, when he was angry with his steward, said: I would kill you now, he said, if I were not angry. What shall I say of joy and pleasure, and above all of love, which blinds the eyes of the heart and permits the lover to think of nothing but what he loves? Must it not be called drunkenness when, for the sake of a worthless harlot and a shameful part of the body, the freedom of the soul is bent down to servile flatteries? When it makes its own labor the delights of another? When by theft, crime and perjuries it prepares wealth for future pleasure? And when, though it is seen by all, it thinks itself unseen, so long as it gains possession of what it desires. But avarice too blinds the mind of him for whom nothing is enough; and so do womanish fear and the craving for sweet vices. Hence it is said to them: Awake and wake up, you who are drunk, by no means with wine, as is contained in the LXX alone, but with every perturbation of vices. Weep and lament, and do penance, and take up the sorrow that leads to life, and howl, all you who drink wine in sweetness, or in drunkenness. For vices are sweet, because honey drips from the lips of a harlot woman; and for that reason it is not offered in the sacrifices of God, because the wine has perished, or has been taken away from your mouth, the drunkenness and sweetness that had deceived you. For it often happens by the providence of God that those who did not know him in prosperity know him in adversity, and that those who have wickedly abused riches are corrected toward virtues by want. According to this sense let the old men hear, and let the inhabitants of the earth perceive with their ears, that the command now concerns that wine in which there is debauchery, and those who have been made drunk with it cannot possess the kingdom of God. Let him who has been put to sleep by the drunkenness of wine awake, and wail that he has been drunk, and howl, so that afterward his howling and weeping may be turned into laughter, and he may rejoice that he no longer has the matter of drunkenness, which through abundance had made him drunk and mad.

We have spoken according to the history; let us pass on to the spiritual understanding, so that with the old men we may be able to hear: A nation has come up over the land of God, that is, the human soul. For all souls are God's; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son. And there comes up the nation of the princes of this world, and of darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places, against whom we have our wrestling and struggle, of whom it is said: If the spirit of him who has power comes up over you, do not leave your place; the teeth of this nation are like the teeth of a lion, of whom the apostle Peter speaks: Our adversary the devil, like a roaring lion, goes about seeking whom he may devour. And its molars are like a lion's whelp. By the lion's whelp understand either him who is lifted up against everything that is called God and religion, or certainly every perverse dogma. Over the crushing of his molars, which lie hidden within and are not seen, so that they are not easily avoided, the psalmist also rejoices, saying: The Lord will break the molars of the lions.

For a nation has come up over my land, strong and without number; its teeth are like the teeth of a lion, and its molars like a lion's whelp. It has made my vine a desert, and has stripped the bark from my fig tree; stripping it, it has despoiled it, and cast it away; its branches have become white. LXX: For a nation has come up over the land, strong and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its molars as of a lion's whelp. It has made my vine a destruction, and my figs a breaking; searching it has searched it, and cast it away; it has whitened its branches. The Jews think that in the days of Joel so countless a multitude of locusts came over Judea that they filled everything; and they left behind, I will not say the crops, but not even the bark and the branches of the vines and the trees, so that, all the greenness consumed, the whitening branches of the trees and the dry shoots of the vines remained. Whether this happened or not we cannot clearly affirm; for the history of Kings and Chronicles does not recount it. Certainly, had it happened, Scripture would never have kept silent, just as we read of the famine of three years and six months under Elijah. We say only this, that under the metaphor of locusts the coming of enemies is described: either of the Assyrians and Babylonians, who were then threatening; or of the Medes and Persians, who were to come afterward; or of the Macedonians, who we know came a long time after; or finally of the Romans, of whom we spoke above. Although it now seems to us rather to be said about the Babylonians and the Chaldeans, whose cruelty and savagery against the people of God is described; and, unless I am mistaken, I seem to have found something in this prophet. The impiety of the enemies is recounted under the figure of locusts, and again it is said of the locusts themselves as though they were compared to enemies, so that when you read of locusts you think of enemies, and when you have thought of enemies you return to the locusts. So a nation of locusts has come up out of the wilderness, or the army of the Chaldeans, over the land of God, strong and without number. For what is more countless and stronger than locusts, which human industry cannot resist? Its teeth, that is, of the nation of locusts — but understand everything τροπικῶς (figuratively) —, are like the teeth of a lion, and its molars like a lion's whelp, so that those who are equal to locusts in strength and multitude are compared to lions in ferocity and cruelty. This nation, he says, has made my vine a desert, the vine which I brought over out of Egypt and planted, and has stripped the bark from my fig tree, the people of the Jews, to whom the Savior came to eat its fruit, and did not find any, and cursed it, and it withered forever. But let us recognize that all these things are said under the metaphor of locusts, which so ravage everything that they gnaw off the bark of trees and cast it away stripped off, and, all the greenness consumed, leave the branches white and dry.

How then are we to be freed from this pest? If we can drink a potion that is able to kill the worms within us and the serpents. And of what nature, it will be asked, may this potion be, that hath such power? The precious Blood of Christ, if it be received with full assurance, for this will have power to extinguish every disease; and together with this the divine Scriptures carefully heard, and almsgiving added to our hearing; for by means of all these things we shall be enabled to mortify the affections that mar our soul. And then only shall we live; for now surely we are in no better state than the dead: forasmuch as it cannot be, that while those passions live, we should live too, but we must necessarily perish. And unless we first kill them here, they will be sure to kill us in the other life; or rather before that death they will exact of us, even here, the utmost penalty. Yes, for every such passion is both cruel and tyrannical and insatiable, and never ceases to devour us every day. For "their teeth are the teeth of a lion," or rather even far more fierce. For the lion, as soon as ever he is satisfied, is wont to leave the carcass that hath fallen in his way; but these passions neither are satisfied, nor do they leave the man whom they have seized, until they have set him nigh the devil.

O wretched beings, who by going after the praises of men waste to themselves all the fruits of their labors, and while they aim to show themselves to the eyes of others, blast all that they do. When the evil spirits prompt them to boastfulness, taking them for a prey they strip bare their works, as we have said. Hence Truth, in setting forth by the prophet the rancor of our old enemies under the form of a particular people, says, "It has laid waste my vines and splintered my fig trees; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white."

If, then, we give place to this nation to come up over us, at once it will make our vine a desert, the vine from which we used to make the wine that gladdens the heart of man; and it strips the bark from our figs, or breaks them, so that we may not have in us the sweetest gifts of the Holy Spirit, so that the holy man may not rest under our vine and fig tree, under which, when he is there, he will not fear the assault of the adversaries. Nor is it enough for this nation to destroy the vine and break the fig tree, unless, searching, it searches them, and kills whatever is living in them, so that, all the greenness consumed, white and dead twigs remain, and there is fulfilled in us: If they do these things in the green wood, what will they do in the dry?

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth over the husband of your youth. LXX: Lament to me over a bride girded with haircloth, over her virgin husband. The husband of youth, or, as the Seventy translated, παρθενικὸς, whom people commonly call the virgin husband, because he was the first to take away the flower of virginity, is understood to be none other than God, who in Abraham, Isaac and Jacob betrothed to himself a virgin bride stained by no filth of idolatry. To her he speaks also through Jeremiah: Did you not call me lord, and father, and prince of your virginity?. Hence the Apostle also says to the believers: I have betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. As long as the bridegroom is with this bride, you cannot fast, nor lament, nor show by tears your longing for an absent bridegroom. But when the bridegroom has been taken away from her, she laments and wails, and girds herself with sackcloth and haircloth, and instead of a belt she is girded with a rope. We have understood who the virginal bridegroom is; but because this bridegroom, or husband, not only received a virgin as his bride, but also, in Hosea, took a harlot as his wife, for this reason it is written in Deuteronomy: If you go out against your enemies, and the Lord your God delivers them into your hand, and you lead them captive, and see among the number of the captives a beautiful woman, and love her, and wish to have her as your wife; you shall bring her into your house, and she shall shave her hair and pare her nails, and put off the garment in which she was taken, and sitting in your house she shall weep for her father and her mother for one month, and afterward you shall go in to her and sleep with her, and she shall be your wife. The husband of such a woman, that is, her lord, is not a virginal one; rather, he takes as his wife a harlot from the filth of the Gentiles. This we can say also of every soul of the believers. If it has believed in the Lord from a tender age, it has the Lord as a virginal bridegroom. But if it has come to the truth of the faith from the Jews or the Gentiles, and from the most filthy dregs of the heretics, and has passed from darkness to light, it will indeed have a bridegroom, but not a virgin one; and of such people it is said: In Egypt your breasts were crushed, and there you were deflowered.

According to ἀναγωγὴν (anagogy) this seems to us to be the sense: after the bride who had received the teaching of God has been separated from the bridegroom through her sins, and instead of garments of fine linen and linen has been girded with haircloth, that is, has taken on the dress of one who mourns, then the sacrifice will perish, of which it is written: A sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit, and the libation of wine, which gladdens the heart of man, from the house of God, which is the Church, as the Apostle says to Timothy: That you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the living God. And the sacrifice and the libation will be taken away from the house of the Lord when, iniquity having multiplied, the love of many has grown cold; and the leaders of the people and the ministers of the altar see that the plains and level ground of the believers do not bear the fruits of virtues, but that everything bristles with vices, when the caterpillar, the locust, the cankerworm and the blight have consumed the grain and the barley, and the vines and the oil, and we no longer have the cup of which it is written: Your inebriating cup, how splendid it is. And the oil will have perished, of which we read in Ecclesiastes: At all times let your garments be white, and let oil not be lacking from your head, by which the face is gladdened and the head of the one who fasts is anointed.

The sacrifice and the libation have perished from the house of the Lord, and the priests, the ministers of the Lord, have mourned; the region is laid waste, the ground has mourned, because the wheat is devastated. The wine is confounded, the oil has languished, the farmers are confounded. The vinedressers have howled over the grain and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished; the vine is confounded and the fig tree has languished; the pomegranate and the palm and the apple tree, and all the trees of the field have dried up, because joy is confounded from the sons of men. LXX: The sacrifice and the libation have been taken away from the house of the Lord; mourn, you priests, ministers of the Lord, because the plains have been made desolate; let the land mourn, because the wheat is afflicted, the wine has dried up, the oil is diminished, the farmers have dried up; mourn, you possessions, for the grain and the barley, because the vintage has perished from the field, the vine has dried up, and the figs are diminished; the pomegranate and the palm and the apple tree and all the trees of the field are dried up, because the sons of men have confounded joy. As far as the history is concerned, because of the multitude of locusts, or of the enemies who are described under their likeness, when everything had been laid waste and consumed, the sacrifice and the libation perished from the house of the Lord, of which they were accustomed to offer the one from fine flour, the other from wine. Therefore the priests, who are the ministers of the Lord, mourned, since neither the sacrifices nor the libations were duly celebrated, above all because the tithes too, which they had been accustomed to receive, were by no means offered. For the whole region was laid waste. The ground mourned, μετωνυμικῶς (by metonymy), for: those who dwelt on the ground; the wheat, the wine and the oil languished; the farmers and vinedressers too were confounded and howled, because not only the grain but also the barley, which is cheaper and more fruitful, dried up. And the legumes too, which I think are signified where he says: The harvest of the field has perished, that is, all that the ground is wont to produce. Why should I speak of grain, wine and oil and barley, when even the fruits of the trees have dried up, the fig tree has languished, and the pomegranate, and the palm, and the apple tree, and all the trees, whether unfruitful or fruit-bearing, have been consumed by the ravaging locust? All these things happened so that joy might be taken away, or confounded, from the sons of men. We can say that these same things happened also to the people of the Jews after the coming of the Savior, when, crying out with equal fury, they said: Crucify, crucify such a one; we have no king but Caesar; when Jerusalem was surrounded by an army, and they came into such extremity of famine and pestilence that they fed on the bodies of their sons, not yet grown; and all the sacrifices were taken away, and joy was confounded from the sons of men, because they refused to receive the joy of which the angel speaks to the shepherds: I announce to you great joy.

Then the farmers will be confounded, when they see that in their possessions there springs up no wheat, by which men are nourished, and no barley, by which the irrational beasts of burden are sustained, and that the vine is confounded, of which it is written: Israel is a leafy vine, abundant fruit is in it; the Lord waiting for it to make grapes, and it made thorns. The fig tree too has languished, under which Nathanael was before he believed, and the pomegranate, to whose rind the cheeks of the bride are compared in the Song; and the palm, which, having lost its greenness, has dried up, of which it was once said: But the just man will flourish like the palm; and the apple tree, of which we read in the same Song: As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my kinsman among the sons. What need is there to run through all the trees, since all have dried up, and instead of joy and gladness grief and confusion have overwhelmed the sons of men?

Describing the calamity at greater length to bring to repentance those suffering from indifference, he bids even the produce to lament the failure of the barley and the wheat and the defoliation of the vine, and in general the lack of fruit on olives and figs and the other fruit trees due to their being deprived of moisture. Now it should be understood that he instructs the land and the produce to lament, not as rational creatures but in his attempt to rouse those endowed with reason through the inanimate creatures. To emphasize this, he went on, "because human beings confounded joy," that is, the cause of the infertility is people's lawlessness—hence the end of happiness and the onset of depression.

Joel again summons us wailing and will have the ministers of the altar lament under the conditions of famine. He does not allow us to revel in the misfortunes of others. After sanctifying a fast, calling a solemn assembly and gathering the old men, the children, and those of tender age, we ourselves must further haunt the temple in sackcloth and ashes, prostrated humbly on the ground, because the field is wasted and the meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord, till we draw down mercy by our humiliation.

Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; howl, you ministers of the altar; go in, lie in sackcloth, you ministers of my God, because the sacrifice and the libation have perished from the house of your God; sanctify a fast, call an assembly, gather the old men, all the inhabitants of the earth, into the house of your God, and cry to the Lord. LXX: Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; bewail, you who minister at the altar; go in, sleep in sackcloths, you ministers of God, because the sacrifice and the libation have failed from the house of your God; sanctify a fast, proclaim a healing; gather the old men, all the inhabitants of the earth, into the house of your God, and cry to the Lord vehemently. Let him who is a holy priest, and eats the Passover of the Lord, be girded with the belt of chastity, and hear with the apostles: Let your loins be girded, and burning lamps in your hands. But let him who is a sinner, and whom his own conscience gnaws, be girded with haircloth and lament, either his own sins or those of the people, and let him enter the Church, from which he had gone out because of his sins, and lie, or sleep, in sackcloth, so that by austerity of life he may make up for the past delights by which he had offended God. For those who are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings. And let the priests gird themselves and lament and howl, and sleep in sackcloth, the prophet exhorting them to repentance, who says: Ministers of my God, because the sacrifice and the libation have perished from the house of your God, of which we spoke above.

If God does not desire fasting, how is it that in Leviticus he commands the whole people in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, to fast until the evening, and threatens that he who does not constrain his soul shall die and be cut off from his people? How is it that the graves of lust, where the people fell in their devotions to flesh, remain even to this day in the wilderness? Do we not read that the stupid people gorged themselves with quails until the wrath of God came upon them? Why was the man of God at whose prophecy the hand of King Jeroboam withered, and who ate contrary to the command of God, immediately smitten? Strange that the lion which left the ass safe and sound should not spare the prophet just risen from his meal. He who, while he is fasting, had wrought miracles, no sooner ate a meal than he paid the penalty for the gratification. Joel also cries aloud: "Sanctify a fast, proclaim a time of healing." So it appears that a holy fast may avail toward the cure of sin.

Nor is it enough to weep, or to lament and take on the dress of one who mourns, unless they sanctify a fast and call an assembly. If every fast pleased God, he would never say: Sanctify a fast, and: I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord. And in the Gospel those are condemned who disfigure their faces so that they may appear to men to fast; and in the days, he says, of your fasts you strike with fists, and oppress the poor. Therefore he now says: Sanctify a fast. The Manichaean fasts, and many heretics, above all the Encratites, whose chief is Tatian; but this fast is worse than surfeit and drunkenness. And call an assembly, or a healing, so that through repentance we may heal our sins. For assembly, in the Hebrew one reads arasa, which Symmachus translated as synod, Aquila as day of gathering. Gather the old men, whose age, near to death and of riper judgment, takes up the fear and worship of God the more. And also all the inhabitants of the earth, of whom he had said above: Hear this, old men, and perceive with your ears, all inhabitants of the earth, so that both the old men and the inhabitants of the earth may be gathered into the house of God, which is the Church. And when they are in the Church, and from the unlike flock of priests and people, of old men and inhabitants of the earth, one flock has been made, cry, he says, to the Lord in your hearts and say:

Ah, ah, ah for the day, because the day of the Lord is near, and like devastation from the mighty one it will come. LXX: Woe is me, woe is me, woe is me for the day, because the day of the Lord is near, and like misery from misery it will come. For what we have translated from the mighty one, and what in Hebrew is said saddai, which we have said several times is one of the ten names of God, the LXX translated misery, reading sud for saddai. So the voice of the priests and of the people crying to the Lord is brought in, so that they say three times: Woe is me. I believe it is because, through the sins they had committed, they had offended the holy Trinity. But the day of retribution for all sins is that of which all the prophets write, and above all Isaiah cries aloud: Behold, the incurable day of the Lord is coming, of fury and of wrath, to make the whole world a desert, and to destroy the sinners out of it. This day is rightly called incurable, because when the day of judgment has come there will be no place for repentance; and compared with eternity it is near and not far off. And what follows: And like misery from misery it will come, or, like devastation from the mighty one it will come, has this sense: that evils follow upon evils, and every affliction is dealt out with God as judge, who can destroy body and soul in Gehenna. What we have said generally of the day of judgment, let us refer specially to the time of the Jewish captivity, when Jerusalem was taken and the temple destroyed; for not much time afterward there came also the captivity of the ten and the two tribes by the Assyrians and Chaldeans, and it is foretold as about to come, so that when it has come it may not seem to have happened by chance, or by the strength of the enemies, but by the wrath and threat of God; or at least so that, if the people do penance, what is to come may not come, which will come if they persist in their sins.

Has not the nourishment perished before our eyes, from the house of our God, gladness and exultation? LXX: Before your eyes the nourishment has perished, from the house of our God gladness and joy. Before the eyes of sinners their nourishment perishes, when the crops already hoped for are taken out of their hands, and the locust forestalls the reaper, so that what in hope has been stored in the granaries the cankerworm and the blight consume. From those too who dwell in the Church, according to the quality of their merits, if they have sinned, the wheat of the spirit and the barley of the letter is taken away, so that they suffer hunger for the word of God. And when the nourishment has been taken away, it follows that joy and gladness are taken away from the house of God, so that those who before heard the Apostle saying: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice, afterward hear the Lord calling them to repentance: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

What is a basket of dung, except the memory of sins? For the sins of the flesh are called dung. Hence it is also said through the prophet: "The beasts have rotted in their dung." For the beasts to rot in their dung is for carnal people to end their lives in the stench of luxury.

The beasts of burden have rotted in their dung; the granaries are demolished, the storehouses are scattered, because the wheat is confounded; why has the animal groaned, have the herds of cattle lowed? Because there is no pasture for them, and even the flocks of small cattle have perished. LXX: The calves have leapt about in their stalls; the treasures are scattered, the winepresses are dug under, because the wheat has dried up; what shall we lay up for ourselves? The herds of oxen have wept, because there were no pastures for them, and the flocks of sheep have perished. After the nourishment had perished, and joy and gladness had been taken away from the house of God, the beasts of burden too rotted in their dung, or, according to the spiritual understanding, frolicked in their stalls and kicked against their creator, so that there was fulfilled what is written: If they are not filled, they will murmur. He rots in his dung whose god is his belly, and who says: Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die; for him the granaries of future happiness are demolished, and the storehouses of eternal abundance are scattered, or the winepresses are overturned, because if there is no grain and no wine, granaries and winepresses are prepared in vain.

The prophet says, "The beasts of burden have become putrid in their own dung." For beasts of burden to become putrid in their own dung means for all those who are materialistic to end their lives in the stench of dissipation. As often as we prove a materialistic heart for its sins, as often as we draw back to its memory the wrongs it has committed, it is as if we are turning a measure of dung onto a barren tree. It is to call to mind the evils it has done and grow fertile to the gift of compunction as if from the stench.

And when everything has dried up, then they will complain with a tearful voice and say: What shall we lay up for ourselves? And what follows according to the LXX: The herds of oxen have wept, because there are no pastures for them, compels us to take what has been said not of oxen and herds, but of those who because of their simplicity are called oxen and sheep. Of their pastures the Savior speaks: He will go in and go out, and will find pasture. But understand all these things under the metaphor of the caterpillar, the locust, the cankerworm and the blight: that when the crops had been taken away and laid waste, famine and pestilence took possession of everything.

To you, O Lord, I will cry, because fire has eaten the beautiful places of the desert, and the flame has set on fire all the trees of the region; and even the beasts of the field, like a garden bed thirsting for rain, have looked up to you, because the springs of waters have been dried up; and fire has devoured the beautiful places of the desert. LXX: To you, O Lord, I will cry, because fire has consumed the beautiful places of the desert, and the flame has set on fire all the trees of the field, and the beasts of burden of the plain have looked up to you, because the outflowings of waters have been dried up; and fire has devoured the beautiful places of the desert. As the prophet cries to the Lord, or the people through the prophet, because fire has eaten the beautiful places of the desert and the flame has set on fire all the trees of the region, the beasts and the beasts of burden of the field, or of the plain, have looked up to the Lord, like a little garden bed thirsting for rain. For Aquila signifies this by one word, saying ἐπρασιώθη; and they have looked up to him because the springs, or the outflowings, of waters have dried up, and fire has devoured the beautiful places of the desert: namely, that the caterpillar and the locust and the cankerworm and the blight have done this, what fire does in stubble, and flame in brambles. And by the beautiful places of the desert, which in Hebrew are called naoth, let us understand either the level stretches of the plains, or the flowering meadows, or places green with grass, which provided pasture for the beasts of burden. Now what made the people cry to the Lord through the prophet, and the beasts of burden look up to him, was the fire which devoured the beautiful places of the desert, and the flame which set on fire all the trees of the region, so that crops and fruits perished alike, and the fact that the springs of waters were dried up; and whatever could be found in the desert the devouring flame consumed. And at the same time let us consider that, except for distress and the taking away of their delights, neither the prophet nor the beasts would have cried to the Lord or looked up to the Lord; and this indeed can also be referred to a man once just, who, when he has turned aside and done evil, his former virtues will profit him nothing; but the Lord will judge him in those things in which he finds him. We can call beautiful places of the desert those of whom it is written: More are the sons of the deserted one than of her who has a husband. But the flame which sets on fire all the trees of the region must be believed to be that which is sent in with the burning arrows of the devil, so that nothing of good fruits may remain in us, but all may be consumed by the fire. For all adulterers, their hearts are like an oven; and not only the prophet, or the people through the prophet, which is a rational animal, but the beasts of burden too, of which it is said: Men and beasts of burden you will save, O Lord. And elsewhere: I have become like a beast of burden before you. And again: I will sow them with the seed of men and of beasts of burden, have looked up to the Lord, and have begged for the dew of his mercy, because the springs of waters have been dried up, which the hart longs for. And of which the Lord speaks through Jeremiah: They have forsaken me, the fountain of living water. And when the springs of waters, which water and refresh all dry things, have been dried up, it follows that whatever was beautiful in us has been consumed by the heat of the fire, of which the Lord speaks in the Gospel: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.