Malachi 1

We wish to interpret Malachi, the last of the twelve prophets, whose name the LXX translated "his angel", saying: The taking up of the word of the Lord upon Israel in the hand of his angel, in place of which we read in the Hebrew Malachi, which is more correctly and expressly rendered "angel", that is, "my messenger". Nor is it to be thought, according to the opinion of some, that an angel came from heaven and took up a human body, in order to speak to Israel the things that had been commanded by the Lord. For if names are to be interpreted, and if from names not a spiritual understanding but the order of the history is to be woven, then both Hosea, who is called savior, and Joel, who is interpreted the Lord God, or beginning, and the rest of the prophets will not be men, but either angels or the Lord and Savior, because this is what their names sound. In short, apart from the Seventy, the others, interpreting the name Malachi, translated it as it is read in the Hebrew. Now the Hebrews consider Malachi to be Ezra the priest, because all the things that are contained in his book this prophet also recalls, saying: The lips of the priest shall guard knowledge, and they shall seek the law from his mouth, because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts. The time also and the title agree, as we have said in the psalms too, that those which have no titles are to be believed to belong to those by whose names the preceding psalms are headed. Therefore Malachi too, that is, Ezra, must be believed to have lived after Haggai and Zechariah, who prophesied under Darius. And for this reason he has no title, because his book stands in place of a title; in it we learn that in the reign of Artaxerxes king of the Persians, Ezra son of Seraiah, and of the others, up to the place where it is said: son of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest from the beginning, went up from Babylon, and the king gave him, according to the hand of the Lord his God, all his request; and there went up with him some of the sons of Israel, and of the sons of the priests, and of the sons of the Levites, and of the singers, and of the doorkeepers, and of the Nethinim to Jerusalem, in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes, and they came to Jerusalem in the fifth month; this is the seventh year of the king, because on the first day of the first month he began to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem. These things, my Minervius and Alexander, you who are one not so much in blood as in religion, I have said briefly in the Preface, so as not to abandon the work on the prophets that I had undertaken and toil for you at an extraordinary labor, so that, setting out the words of Malachi first according to the Hebrew truth, then according to the LXX translators, and upheld by the help of your prayers, I may expound what follows. Origen wrote three volumes on this book, but he did not touch the history at all, and, after his custom, he was wholly occupied in the interpretation of allegory, making no mention of Ezra, but thinking that it was an angel who wrote, according to what we read of John: Behold, I send my angel before your face. This we do not accept at all, lest we be compelled to admit falls of souls from heaven. I am not aware of having read other commentaries on this prophet, except a short booklet of Apollinaris, of which one should speak not so much of an interpretation as of the bare points of an interpretation.

The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel, in the hand of Malachi. LXX: The taking up of the word of the Lord upon Israel, in the hand of his angel. What burden signifies, that is, weight, which in Hebrew is called massa and by Aquila ἄρμα, or what λῆμμα signifies, that is, taking up, which both the Seventy and the other translators rendered, we have said in other prophets. For Nahum too writes: The burden of Nineveh, the book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite, and Habakkuk: The burden which Habakkuk the prophet saw, and Zechariah: The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, and of Damascus his rest. And again in what follows: The burden of the word of the Lord upon Israel. Let us therefore be content with that explanation, and now say only this, that the weight of the word of the Lord to Israel, or, as the LXX say, upon Israel, is indeed heavy, because it is called a weight, but has something of consolation, because it is taken up not against Israel but to Israel. For it is one thing when, for example, we write to this man or that, another when we write against this man and that, because in the one there is a share of friendship, in the other an open avowal of enmities. And it must be known that once Israel, that is, the ten tribes, had been led away into captivity, the two tribes too, Judah and Benjamin, are called Israel indifferently by the former name. But as for what is said: In the hand of his angel, or of Malachi, take the hand for works. Hence the word of God came both in the hand of Haggai, and in the hand of Jeremiah, and in the hand of Moses. For in those in whose hands is iniquity, and whose right hand is filled with gifts, and whose hands are full of blood, the word of God does not come, but in those who wash their hands among the innocent. With these waters Pilate too tried to wash his hands, so as not to consent to the blasphemies of the Jews; over them the psalmist rejoices, saying: Upon the waters of refreshment he has brought me up. Of this water the Lord promises through the prophet: I will sprinkle you with most clean water. But he who is a sinner is made drunk with the Babylonian cup, and it is said of him: Thorns spring up in the hand of the drunkard.

LXX: Set it upon your hearts. This is not found in the Hebrew, but I think it was added from Haggai, in whom we read: And now set it upon your hearts from this day and upward. After the title of the prophet, then, or the preface, this is to be taken in two ways: Set it upon your hearts, that is, take note of and consider that which was said above: The taking up of the word of the Lord upon Israel in the hand of his angel. Or else: take careful note of the things that are to be said afterward, so that you may know them not with the ears of the body but with the understanding of the mind and heart, and may make for yourselves treasuries in which to receive the riches of the words of God, and wisdom may act with confidence when you have been enlarged, and, your heart filled with the words of God, you may drive out the most wicked thoughts, the murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts and the rest that come forth from the heart, and may fulfill what was said by the Savior: He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Furthermore, who would be so impiously foolish as to say that God cannot turn the evil wills of people—as he wills, when he wills and where he wills—toward the good? But when he acts, he acts through mercy; when he does not act, it is through justice. For "he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills, he hardens." Now when the apostle said this, he was commending grace, of which he had just spoken in connection with the twin children in Rebecca's womb: "Before they had yet been born or had done anything good or bad, in order that the electing purpose of God might continue, it was said of them, 'The elder shall serve the younger.' " Accordingly he refers to another prophetic witness, where it is written, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I have hated." Then, realizing how what he said could disturb those whose understanding could not penetrate to this depth of grace, he adds, "What therefore shall we say to this? Is there unrighteousness in God? God forbid!" Yet it does seem unfair that, without any merit derived from good works or bad, God should love the one and hate the other. Now if the apostle had wished us to understand that there were future good deeds of the other—which God, of course, foreknew—he never would have said "not of good works" but rather "of future works." Thus he would have solved the difficulty; or rather he would have left no difficulty to be solved. As it is, however, when he went on to exclaim, "God forbid!" he proceeds immediately to add (to prove that no unfairness in God is involved here), "For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will show pity to whom I will show pity.' " Now who but a fool would think God unfair either when he imposes penal judgment on the deserving or when he shows mercy to the undeserving? Finally, the apostle concludes and says, "Therefore it is not a question of him who wills nor of him who runs but of God's showing mercy."

Who are these that reply to God, who speaks to Rebecca? She had twin sons of one conception of Isaac our father. "The children were not yet born nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God according to election might stand)." The election was of grace, not of merit. It is the election by which he does not find but makes elect—"that it was not of works but of him that calls, that the elder should serve the younger." To this sentence the blessed apostle adds the testimony of a prophet who came along afterward: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated" to give us to understand plainly by the later utterance what was hidden in the predestination of God by grace before they were born. For what did he love but the free gift of his mercy in Jacob, who had done nothing good before his birth? And what did he hate but original sin in Esau, who had done nothing evil before his birth? Surely he would not have loved in the former a goodness which he had not practiced, nor would he have hated in the latter a nature which he himself had created good.

Consider again, "I loved Jacob and I _hated_ Esau". How is the thing called God's "hatred" of Esau displayed in the actual story? Not at all as we might expect. There is of course no ground for assuming that Esau made a bad end and was a lost soul; the Old Testament, here as elsewhere, has nothing to say about such matters. And, from all we are told, Esau's earthly life was, in every ordinary sense, a good deal more blessed than Jacob's. It is Jacob who has all the disappointments, humiliations, terrors, and bereavements. But he has something which Esau has not. He is a patriarch. He hands on the Hebraic tradition, transmits the vocation and the blessing, becomes an ancestor of Our Lord. The "loving" of Jacob seems to mean the acceptance of Jacob for a high (and painful) vocation; the "hating" of Esau, his rejection. He is "turned down", fails to "make the grade", is found useless for the purpose.

At the very beginning of the world, of those two sons who were born of Adam, Abel the younger is chosen, while as a figure of the unfaithful Jews, Cain the older one is condemned. Afterward, in the time of Abraham, the same figure is fulfilled in Sarah and Hagar. Sarah was sterile for a long time as a type of the church, while Hagar as a figure of the synagogue bore a son at once. Hence it is that the younger son Isaac is received into the inheritance, but Ishmael, who was older, is driven away. This fact also seems to have been fulfilled in those two: Jacob the younger was loved by God, while Esau was rejected according to what is written: "I have loved Jacob but hated Esau." This figure is also known to have been fulfilled in those two sisters whom blessed Jacob had as his wives: Rachel, who was the younger, was loved more than Leah the older. In fact, of the former was born Joseph, who was to be sold in Egypt as a type of our Lord and Savior. That Leah was bleary-eyed while Rachel was beautiful in countenance is also significant: in Leah is understood the synagogue; the church is indicated in Rachel. A man whose bodily eyes are afflicted with inflammation cannot look at the brightness of the sun. Similarly the synagogue, which had had the eyes of its heart filled with jealousy and envy against our Lord and Savior as with poisonous floods, could not gaze upon the splendor of Christ, who is "the Sun of justice."

And in both directions, before the little ones were born: "God loved Jacob, but Esau he held in hatred" (Mal. 1:1, 2). Here the heretics find an opening, who claim that there are diverse natures, namely the spiritual and the animal and the χοϊκὴν (earthy), and that one is saved, another perishes, and another stands between the two; for, they say, neither would the righteous man ever be chosen before he had done anything good, nor the sinner be hated before his sin, unless the nature of those who perish and of those who are to be saved were different. To this it can be answered simply that this comes about from the foreknowledge of God: that the one whom he knows will be righteous he loves before he comes forth from the womb, and the one whom he knows will be a sinner he hates before he sins; not that there is injustice in God, either in his love or in his hatred, but that he ought not to regard them otherwise, because he knows that they will be either sinners or righteous; we, as men, judge only of present things, whereas he, for whom future things are already done, passes sentence on the end of things, not on their beginnings. And these things indeed have been said rather simply, and without a loftier discussion they can in some measure satisfy the reader. But those who strive to assert that God is unjust, after the words we set down a little earlier, "sinners are estranged from the womb", also bring in the rest that follows: "They have gone astray from the womb, they have spoken falsehoods". And they say: how did sinners go astray straight from the womb and speak falsehoods, when they could have neither speech nor understanding? Or what is this righteousness of the foreknowledge of God, to love and guard one before he is born, and to detest another? And they refer the causes of this to a former life, holding that each one, according to his merit, is assigned from his very first birth to good or to evil angels. And that whole passage about Jacob and Esau, which we have just mentioned, as it is written to the Romans (Rom. 9), they toss about in such a way that they cannot be answered without sweat, and even the hellebore of Chrysippus.

I have loved you, says the Lord. And you have said: In what have you loved us? Was not Esau the brother of Jacob, says the Lord, and I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated? And I have made his mountains a wilderness, and his inheritance a place for the dragons of the desert. But if Idumea should say: We are destroyed, but returning we will build the things that are destroyed; thus says the Lord of hosts: They will build, and I will destroy; and they shall be called the borders of impiety, and the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever. And your eyes shall see, and you shall say: May the Lord be magnified upon the border of Israel. LXX: I have loved you, says the Lord, and you have said: In what have you loved us? Was not Esau the brother of Jacob, says the Lord; and I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated; and I have made his borders a desolation, and his inheritance the dwellings of the desert. For Idumea will say: It is destroyed; let us return and rebuild the deserted places. Thus says the Lord Almighty: They will build, and I will destroy, and they shall be called, for them, the borders of iniquity, and the people against whom the Lord has been prepared for ever. And your eyes shall see, and you shall say: The Lord has been magnified upon the borders of Israel. Israel, that is, Judah, to whom the word of God and the vision of the Lord used to come, is compelled to carry his burden and the heaviest weight of punishments, so that it may lay down its heavier sins and feel through torments what it did not feel through benefits. And lest the punishment of his own should seem unjust, the Lord adds: I have loved you. For whom the Lord loves he rebukes: and he chastises every son whom he receives. And by saying I have loved, he denies the present while he confesses the past. And they, forgetful of his benefits, answer with the same rashness with which they sin: In what have you loved us? To which the Lord says: To pass over everything else, and the fact that you have lately come from the Babylonian captivity, I will deal with your cradles: before you were born, nay rather before Rebekah poured forth Esau and Jacob from her womb, in Jacob I loved you, in Esau I hated the Idumeans. The apostle Paul, sifting this passage in a mystical disputation, writes to the Romans, joining together two testimonies, from Genesis and from Malachi: But Rebekah too, having conceived by one act of intercourse with Isaac our father. For when they were not yet born, nor had done anything good or evil, so that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not from works but from him who calls, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger; as it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated. For what is said: As it is written, refers both to the book of Genesis and to the prophet Malachi. Not only, he says, did I love Jacob before he was born, and hate Esau before he was poured forth from his mother's womb, but I have kept my love and my hatred toward their posterity: my hatred toward Esau, whose mountains, which are called Seir, I have reduced to a wilderness, and whose cities I have made to be deserted and to be held by serpents and beasts.

Now let us come to the spiritual understanding. Israel, a man or a mind seeing God, or, as I think better, εὐθύτατος Θεοῦ, that is, most upright of God, is loved by the Lord, and wishes to know the reason for his love toward him. And the Lord answered that Esau and Jacob were begotten of one stock, that is, that vices and virtues proceed from the one fountain of the heart, since by the freedom of choice we incline to either side as we will; but the vices are born first, through infancy, childhood and youth, and afterward a firmer age reproves and supplants them. The elder brother is hairy and bloody with his hunting, and delights in woods and beasts. The younger is smooth and simple, and dwells innocently at home. God makes the borders of Idumea, that is, of the earthly and bloody, a wilderness, and allows nothing to grow from the earth and to endure. But if shameless malice should strive to build again the things that have been destroyed by the word of God, the Lord declares himself the adversary of the things that are restored by the vices. And after everything within the hostile borders has been overthrown, then we can see the eyes of Israel, and all the saints can say: May the Lord be magnified in the borders of those who behold God with the mind. Moreover, the love and the hatred of God arise either from foreknowledge of what is to come, or from works; otherwise we know that God loves all things, and hates nothing of what he has created, but properly claims for his love those who are enemies of the vices and rebels against them. And on the contrary he hates those who long to build up again what has been destroyed by God. Now God is said to hate ἀνθρωποπάθως (in human fashion), as he is said to weep, to grieve, to be angry, so that when we hear of his hatred toward the wicked, we may flee the things that we understand God to hate.

I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect. For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this time will I come, and Sara shall have a son. And not only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by our father Isaac; (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;) It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. [Malachi 1:2-3] What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

But if Edom, that is, Esau, should say: we have indeed been destroyed, unto the wrath of God, but we will build the cities again, know this from the Lord's foretelling, that as they build, I will destroy, and their everlasting desolation will prove my wrath.

The Jews falsely flatter themselves that the Romans are prophesied as Edom, and they themselves as Israel, at the consummation of the world, on the ground that once the Roman empire, that is, the Idumean, has been destroyed, the kingdom of the world will come to the Jews. These things we have said as well as we could, laying the foundations of the history.

So I have shown my hatred toward Esau in deeds, but my love toward you, that is, toward Jacob, I will prove by what follows. When they have been destroyed and reduced to a wilderness, your eyes will see, and you will say: May the Lord be magnified upon the border of Israel; and from the comparison with the evils your brother suffers, you will feel the benefits of God toward you.

And indeed Balaam the prophet, when he had corrupted Israel by Baal-peor, suffered punishment; and Caiaphas at last was his own murderer; and the sons of Sceva, endeavoring to cast out demons, were wounded by them and fled away in an unseemly manner; and the kings of Israel and of Judah, when they became impious, suffered all sorts of punishments. It is therefore evident how bishops and presbyters, also falsely so called, will not escape the judgment of God. For it will be said to them even now: "O you priests that despise my name, I will deliver you up to the slaughter, as I did Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon fried in a frying pan," as says Jeremiah the prophet.

We must consider what it is that we have been commanded to pray for—commanded by him from whom we learn to pray for and through whom we obtain what we pray for. He says, "In this manner shall you pray: 'Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'?" In every kind of petition we ought first to try to gain the good will of the one we are petitioning. And the praise is usually placed at the beginning of the prayer, where in this instance our Lord has bidden us to say nothing else than "our Father who art in heaven." Praise of God has been expressed in many manners of speech. Anyone can see this as he reads those forms of praise scattered widely here and there throughout the sacred Scriptures. But nowhere is there found any instruction for the people of Israel to say "our Father" or to pray to God as a Father. To them he has been proposed as a master, for they were servants; that is, they were as yet living according to the flesh. When I say this, I am referring to them when they received the commandments of the law which they were ordered to observe, for the prophets frequently point out that this same Lord of ours would have been their father as well, if they did not stray from his commandments. For instance, there are the following expressions: "I have begotten children and exalted them, but they have despised me," and, "I have said, 'You are gods and all of you the sons of the most high,' " and, "If I am a master, where is my fear? And if I am a father, where is my honor?" Even if we were to disregard those prophetic sayings that refer to the fact that there would be a Christian people who would have God as their Father—in accordance with that saying in the Gospel, "He gave them the power of becoming children of God"—there are still many other expressions whereby the Jews are reproved for the fact that by committing sins they refused to be children. The apostle Paul says, "As long as the heir is a little child, he differs in no way from a slave," but he reminds us that we have received the spirit of adoption, by virtue of which we cry, "Abba, Father."

If a man is impious, he is in need of punishment; if he is foolish, he is in need of understanding. Wherefore it is also said in Malachi: "The son honoreth the father and the servant his master: if then I be a father, where is my honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear?"

Be obedient to your bishop and obey him as your spiritual father. Sons love and slaves fear. "If I am a father," he says, "where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear?" In your case one man combines in himself many titles to your respect. He is at once monk, bishop and uncle. But the bishops also should know themselves to be priests, not lords. Let them render to the clergy the honor that is their due that the clergy may offer to them the respect which belongs to bishops.

A son honors his father, and a servant his lord; if then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a lord, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts. LXX: A son glorifies his father, and a servant will fear his lord. And if I am a father, where is my glory? And if I am a lord, where is my fear? says the Lord Almighty. Although before you were born I began to love you as sons in Jacob, still, choose by which name you will call me: either I am your father, or your lord. If a father, render the honor due to a father, and offer a devotion worthy of a parent. If a lord, why do you despise me? Why do you not fear your lord? Now he is speaking to those who returned from the Babylonian captivity under Zerubbabel and Joshua son of Jehozadak, and Ezra the priest, and Nehemiah, and who, though the altar had been built, had not yet built the temple nor raised the walls of the city, and nonetheless remained in their former sins, venerating God neither with love nor with fear. Now what we have called glory, or honor, is one word both among the Greeks, δόξα, and among the Hebrews, chabod, but we have put honor in keeping with the proper idiom of the Latin language. For in the Gospel too, where the Lord and Savior says: Father, the hour has come; make your Son illustrious, that your Son may make you illustrious, among the Greeks δόξασον is read, that is, glorify, a passage which most of the Latins have translated honor. And at the same time let us consider that in the holy Scriptures one becomes a son or a servant by will, not by necessity of nature. For whoever has received the spirit of adoption is turned into a son of God; but whoever has received the spirit of servitude unto fear is made a servant of God. So God wishes first that we be his sons, and do good by our will; if we wish to attain this, that he may at least have us as servants, and that we may withdraw from evil through dread of punishments. We read of sons in a bad sense: We were sons of wrath, and sons of gehenna, whom the Pharisees, having gone round sea and land, begot worthy of torments. And Judas the traitor is called the son of perdition, and in Psalm 88 (89) it is written of the Lord: The son of iniquity shall not go on to harm him. In Hosea too those are called sons of fornication who were begotten of a harlot mother, of whom it is written: Your mother has committed fornication. And in the Gospel the Jews are branded as sons of the devil: You are born of your father the devil, and you wish to do the desires of your father. We read of sons in a good sense, as sons of God: As many as received him, he gave them power to become sons of God. And sons of wisdom, as the Gospel proclaims: Wisdom has been justified by her sons. And sons of Abraham: Amen, amen, I say to you, God is able from these stones to raise up sons of Abraham. And sons of the Apostle: My little sons, with whom I am in labor again until Christ be formed in you; and many things of this kind. A son therefore honors, or makes illustrious, his father, according to what is written: So let your light shine before men, that they may see your works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. A servant too honors his lord, not with the same love as a son, but it is understood ἀπὸ κοινοῦ (from the shared word): a son honors his father, a servant his lord; and yet God Almighty, knowing the difference between a son and a servant, seeks glory from the son and fear from the servant: For the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord, so that from the fear of servants we may pass over to the glory of sons.

To you, O priests, who despise my name, and you have said: In what have we despised your name?

You offer polluted bread upon my altar, and you say: In what have we polluted you? In that you say: The table of the Lord is despised. LXX: You, O priests, who despise my name, and have said: In what have we despised your name? Offering polluted loaves at my altar; and you have said: In what have we polluted them? In that you say: The table of the Lord is despised. But what follows: And the things set upon it you have despised, we have marked with an obelus, because it is not found in the Hebrew, and was added from what follows. To you, then, O priests, who despise my name, is this word directed, you who, having returned from Babylon, ought, from fear of your past servitude, to have turned to the Lord with your whole mind; and not only do you not do this, but, imitating Cain and answering God with proud words, you question him whom hidden things do not escape, and you say: In what have we despised your name? so that by the shamelessness of your pretence you may cover the wound of your conscience. Do you wish, then, to know in what you have despised my name? You offer polluted bread upon my altar, namely the showbread, which, according to the Hebrew traditions, you yourselves were bound to sow, yourselves to reap, yourselves to grind, yourselves to bake; and now you take any loaves at all from the common stock, and answer with rash voice and say: In what have we polluted them, or you? For when the mysteries are violated, he himself whose mysteries they are is violated. But what follows: In that you say: The table of the Lord is despised, we can also interpret thus: that having returned from Babylon, with the temple not yet built, and living in huts and in the ruins of the ancient city, they had built only an altar, not of the same glory as the former one had been, and they thought that the sanctity of religion was lacking because the grandeur of the building was lacking.

We have drawn faint lines, on which the spiritual explanation is to be impressed. The divine word rebukes negligent bishops, and presbyters and deacons, or else, since we are a priestly and royal race, all who, baptized in Christ, are reckoned by the name of Christ, as to why they despise the name of God; and when they ask in what they have despised his name, it shows them the causes of the offence. You offer, he says, polluted bread upon my altar. We pollute the bread, that is, the body of Christ, when we approach the altar unworthy and, filthy as we are, drink the clean blood, and we say: The table of the Lord is despised; not that anyone would dare to say this, and to utter with criminal voice what he impiously thinks, but the works of sinners despise the table of God. We can also put it another way: a teacher of the Church who makes the spiritual bread and distributes it to the peoples, if, either for human glory or for the worldly gains that follow on glory, he speaks among the peoples and flatters the rich, and honors sinners, and, according to James, looks up to those who come to him with gold rings, and repels the poor saints, despises the name of God, and pollutes the bread of doctrines, and hurls insults at God himself, thinking the table of his Scriptures to be common with the tables of idols and of worldly doctrine.

"There is a great distinction, then, between the fear that lacks for nothing, which is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and the one that is imperfect, which is called "the beginning of wisdom." This latter has punishment in itself, and it is cast out from the hearts of the perfect upon the advent of the fullness of love. For "there is no fear in love, but perfect loves casts out fear." And in fact, if the beginning of wisdom consists in fear, what but the love of Christ will be its perfection, which contains in itself the fear of perfect love and which is no longer called the beginning but rather the treasure of wisdom and knowledge? Therefore there are two degrees of fear. The one is for beginners—that is, for those who are still under the servile dread. In regard to this it is said, "The slave shall fear his master," and in the Gospel, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know what his master is doing." And consequently he says, "The slave does not remain in the house forever." For he is instructing us to pass from the fear of punishment to the fullest freedom of love and to the confidence of the friends and sons of God. And the blessed apostle, who had long since passed beyond the degree of servile fear, thanks to the power of the Lord's love, disdains lower things and professes that he has been endowed with greater goods. "For," he says, "God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control." Those who burned with perfect love of the heavenly Father and whom, from slaves, the divine adoption had already made sons he also exhorts in these words: "You have not received a spirit of slavery again in fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption, in which we cry out, 'Abba, Father.' "

Last Sunday I spoke at sufficient length for the correction of those who do not give thanks to the Creator for the divine gifts that they enjoy and who, while benefiting from heavenly kindness, like ungrateful and unworthy persons do not acknowledge the author of kindness. They are ungrateful, I say, who neither fear God as slaves do their master nor honor him as children do their father. God says through the prophets, "If I am a master, where is my fear? If I am a father, where is my love?" That is to say, if you are a slave, render the master service of fear; if you are a son, show your father a reverent love. But when you do not give thanks, you neither love nor fear God; hence you are an insolent slave or a proud son. The good Christian, therefore, ought always to praise his Father and Master and to do all good things with a view of his glory, as the blessed apostle says: "Whether you eat or drink or do anything, do all for the glory of God."

And again in another place He maketh known that He employeth every kind of benefit and help towards them, and that He took and brought nigh unto them every cause for fear and love, but that they would neither fear nor love Him. "If I be Lord, where are those who fear Me? And if I be Father, why do ye not honour Me?" Therefore they should either have feared [Him] as Lord, or have honoured [Him] as Father.

WHY WAS ABEL’S SACRIFICE ACCEPTED, AND CAIN’S REJECTED? — This can be gathered from the words of the very passage itself, since the story is not wrapped in literary pretense. For Scripture’s own language shows Abel to be wise and devout in what he did, but Cain careless and thoughtless, and therefore less devout. Abel, then, chose the better parts from the peaceful flock to offer to the Lord his creator, so that from the things God had created he might offer Him the worthiest, thereby proving both his own submission and God’s merit, and showing his personal reverence and God as author of all. Cain, crudely, was unable to present this. Fixing his whole mind in the soil, he could not lift the eyes of his heart to heaven to see what would be worthy of the Creator; he offered whatever gifts to God, of whatever sort they were. The same cause is found in the Jews with their crooked minds. They were often criticized when they carelessly offered their own gifts to God’s altar, gifts that did not even seem worthy of men, while the Lord said, “You offer to me the blind and the lame; I will not receive these from your hands. Offer them to your governor or your leader, if he will accept them” (Mal. 1:8). It is agreed among all that the greatest gifts ought to be offered to a person of high rank. Therefore Cain’s gifts were rejected, as the Lord said to him, “Why are you downcast, and why has your face fallen? If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned? Be calm. Its turning is toward you, and you shall rule over it” (Gen. 4:6–7). You see, then, that division suffers sin, since, without considering what was worthy of God, he kept the better part for his own use. Therefore he is not criticized because he offered, but because he offered unworthy things.

HOW HAS THE LORD IN LEVITICUS COMMANDED THAT SACRIFICES AND LIBATIONS BE OFFERED, WHICH ELSEWHERE HE REJECTS? FOR IT IS CLEAR IN LEVITICUS THAT THE LORD COMMANDED THE FATHERS TO OFFER LIBATIONS OR SACRIFICES OR BURNT OFFERINGS: YET HE SAYS THEREFORE THROUGH THE PROPHET JEREMIAH: THEREFORE SAYS THE LORD, GATHER YOUR BURNT OFFERINGS WITH YOUR SACRIFICES, AND EAT FLESH; FOR I DID NOT SPEAK TO YOUR FATHERS, NOR DID I COMMAND THEM, IN THE DAY THAT I BROUGHT THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT (Jer. 7:21–22) ABOUT BURNT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES. — If you look closely, there is really no question to be raised on this matter; nor should you think the Lord lied or changed, as if he commanded and later denied. For of this kind of sacrifices and drink offerings or burnt offerings, nothing is found that he commanded, regarding those of which he now testifies that he spoke. Notice that there are two kinds of sacrifices: one which was commanded to be offered for each specific kind, and another which was called voluntary. As for that which was commanded to be offered in various kinds, whether for sins or for firstborn, it was prescribed what it was, of what sort, and how it was to be offered. But the voluntary sacrifice was certainly not commanded, because it was left to free choice, so that if anyone wished to offer, he would offer what seemed good to him; for these sacrifices were voluntary. And because they offered these carelessly and rashly, without considering that whoever offers to one greater should offer chosen gifts, it is therefore said to them, I did not command you about these: but if you wish to offer, you ought to offer what is worthy. Therefore it is found that Cain also sinned, when he did not consider that what is better ought to be offered to God. For when they claimed to offer these to appease God, in that very act they provoked God to anger, so that in what they said they were doing well, they sinned by offering unworthy burnt offerings to God. Therefore he says in the prophet Malachi: “If you bring a blind or lame or sick animal as a victim, it is not good. Offer it to your leader or governor; if he will receive you, says the Lord almighty” (Mal. 1:8). From this it is that through Isaiah God complains of the same matter, saying: “What are your sheep of burnt offering to me? Nor in your sacrifices have you honored me. For I did not make you for this purpose, that you should toil over incense, or that you should buy incense for me with silver; nor have I desired the fat of your sacrifices: instead, you have stood before me in your sins and iniquities” (Isa. 1:11). It is therefore clear that complaints arose because, while they were offering voluntary sacrifices, they were not honoring God in them, since they offered what was unworthy, although these were in no way a matter of necessity. For if they had been commanded, they would seem to offer whatever they could by necessity; but when they offered these of their own free will, they ought to have offered such things as would show God’s service in themselves. But because their mind wandered through the desire for idols, they acted in these matters without due thought. Therefore they are reproached in a twofold way, because they dared to offer to God while acting wickedly, and they offered things that were unworthy; since wicked deeds are not redeemed by sacrifices, but by weeping and mercy. Therefore David, when he had sinned, says: “If you had willed it, I would have given sacrifices: surely you will not delight in burnt offerings. The sacrifice to God is a regretful spirit; and a broken and humbled heart God does not despise” (Ps. 50:18–19). Finally, Samuel says to Saul, who, after he had despised the command of the Lord, thought God could be appeased by a sacrifice: “For,” he says, “God does not desire sacrifice more than that his voice be heard” (1 Sam. 15:22). And Scripture says: “I desire mercy rather than sacrifice” (Hos. 6:6). The Jews, though unjust and without mercy, thought God could be made favorable by offerings; just as even now certain people, despising righteousness, think they are to be praised for their offerings. An offering is therefore good, if righteousness is preserved and mercy is not neglected; because what we ask for ourselves, we must also grant to others.

If you offer the blind for immolation, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it to your governor, whether it will please him, or whether he will accept your face, says the Lord of hosts. LXX: For if you offer the blind for a sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it to your governor, whether he will receive you, whether he will accept your face, says the Lord Almighty. About the diversity of victims, and which ought to be offered and which not, we learn more fully in Leviticus. So the people that had returned from Babylon, and the priests, the Levites, the doorkeepers and singers, and the Nethinim and Solomon's servants, of whom Ezra writes a κατάλογον (catalogue), were offering to God victims that were unlawful, namely blind and lame ones, and ones worn out by various kinds of debility; for this is what he means by sick, taking in everything with one word. If, he says, you were to offer gifts of this kind to your governor, would he not spurn them? Would he not think an injury had been done to him? And do you dare to offer to God what you do not dare to give to men? It would take long now to open the mysteries of all the victims; I shall speak only of those contained in the present passage. Blind is the victim of the soul that is not illumined by the light of Christ and has no eye that looks from the Gospel. Lame is the prayer of one who asks, which comes to pray with a double mind, and hears with the people of the Jews? How long will you limp on both feet? And sick, and covered with every infirmity, is the one that does not have Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Prayers of this kind, which are without the light of truth, and do not have the firm footsteps of wisdom, and waste away with various debilities, if they are offered to the leader of churches, or to any learned and wise teacher, will they not be rejected, and fall back as an insult upon him who has dared to offer such things?

Such was the offering of the murderous Cain that was rejected. He had been told by God, "If you act well, I will receive it." Such again were all the offerings of the Israelites that were rejected, whereby they received the curse of the prophet who says, "Cursed is the man who has a ram in his flock, and he vows and sacrifices to the Lord one that is sickly." He rebukes and reproaches them, saying, "Try offering it to your ruler, to see if he will be pleased with it or show you favor; this is what the Lord says." So how will any address made to God during the ministry of prayer that shows any contempt prove acceptable to God—an address that is full of all sorts of distractions, that is sickly and broken up by interruptions? This sort of thing would not be acceptable even to the most insignificant of human beings if he were thus addressed. The offering of turbulent prayer and the ministration of a heart that shows contempt are exactly like the sacrifice of a blemished ram.

Moreover, the LXX suggest a far different sense: O priests, who sacrifice feeble sacrificial victims, turn to repentance, and entreat the face of the Lord, and pray for the works of your hands. But as for what he adds: If I shall accept your faces from you, I do not know whether it fits an exhortation to repentance. For no one says: Pray to me, and I will not spare you.

And now entreat the face of God that he may have mercy on you, for by your hand this has been done, if in any way he may accept your faces, says the Lord of hosts. Who is there among you that will shut the doors and kindle my altar gratuitously? LXX: And now entreat the face of your God, and ask him; by your hands these things have been done, if I shall accept your faces from you, says the Lord Almighty, because among you too the doors shall be shut, and my altar shall not be kindled for nothing. In this place the Seventy translators differ widely from the Hebrew truth; and it must be that, where the translation is different, the sense too is different. Since you have offered lame and blind and feeble victims, for you have done all these things that I have spoken of, do penance, if in any way God may have mercy on you. For there is no one among you, down to the lowest ministry, I do not say high priest, not priest, not Levite, not singer, but not even the doorkeeper, and he who puts the fire under the altar to burn the whole burnt offerings, who does not receive from me the wage of his labor. Now he says this signifying the tithes of all the produce which are offered by the peoples. From this it is shown that the service which does not demand a wage in the present is more acceptable to the Lord. Hence the Apostle too preaches the gospel freely, and labors night and day with his own hands so as not to be a burden to anyone, and testifies that this glory of his, of gratuitous preaching among the nations, must by no means be made void.

Now I turn to Malachi. This man, prophesying of the church which by Christ's power has now expanded far and wide, takes on the person of God to say to the Jews: " 'I have no pleasure in you,' says the Lord of hosts, 'and I will not receive a gift from your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation for my name is great among the Gentiles,' says the Lord of hosts." Now if we see that everywhere in our time, "from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof," this sacrifice is being offered by Christ's priests according to the order of Melchizedek, and if the Jews are in no position to deny that their sacrifices, rejected in the first verse, have come to an end—how is it that they can be looking for another Christ? They read the prophecy; they see its fulfillment before their very eyes. Why can they not realize that he must have been the Christ to fulfill it, since nobody else could?

Lastly, O Jews, if you try to distort these prophetic words into another meaning according to the dictates of your heart, you resist the Son of God against your own salvation.… The house of Jacob or Israel is the same people, both called and cast off—not called in respect to some and cast off in respect to others, but the entire house called to walk in the light of the Lord.… The reason why the house had been cast off was because its people were not walking in the light of the Lord, or some of the house certainly were called and others cast off in such a way that without any separation having been of the Lord's table as regards the sacrifice of Christ. Both called and cast off were under the same old sacraments, to be sure; both those who walked in the light of the Lord and observed his precepts and those who rejected justice and deserved to be abandoned by it. If you choose to interpret these testimonies in this manner, what are you going to say and how will you interpret another prophet who cuts this reply away entirely, shouting with unmistakable manifestation: " 'I have no pleasure in you,' says the Lord almighty, 'and I will not receive a gift of your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place sacrifice is offered in my name, a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles,' says the Lord almighty."

There follows: Among you the doors shall be shut, namely those of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Hence the Savior says: I am the door. Or otherwise: The doors of the Scriptures will not be opened to you, nor will you be able to look into the holy of holies, nor to know the mysteries of the Lord, nor to kindle his incense at the altar, because your prayers will not reach him. And this word which is said δωρεὰν, and which we have translated gratuitously, those who follow the understanding we are now setting out turn into grace, namely that they do not have the grace of serving the altar of the Lord.

The Jews did return from Babylon, they did recover the city, they did rebuild the temple, and they did offer sacrifices. But it was only after all this that Malachi predicted the coming of the present desolation and the abolition of Jewish sacrifices. This is what he said speaking in God's behalf: " 'Shall I for your sakes accept your persons?' says the Lord God almighty. 'For from the rising of the sun, even to its setting, my name is glorified among the nations; and everywhere they bring incense to my name, and a pure offering. But you have profaned it.' "

After their captivity in Babylon the Jews did rebuild their temple and restored the place where they were allowed to observe all the rituals according to the law. But now the power of Christ, the power that founded the church, has also destroyed their restored temple. And their prophets foretold this and showed that God would reject Judaism and introduce a new way of worship.

Scripture did not pass over in silence the rejection of the Jews. Notice how the prophet Malachi foretold this too. "Behold, among you the doors will be shut, and fire will not be kindled on my altar for anything." He also foretold who would now pay God worship. "From the rising of the sun to its going down, my name has been glorified among the nations." And again he said, "And in every place incense is offered to me and a pure sacrifice." Do you see how he made clear the nobility of worship? How he showed that the new worship had a special honor and differed from the old? Worship will not be confined to a place or a way of sacrifice, nor will it consist in savor or smoke or omens; it will be a different ritual.

"And the offering of fine flour, sirs," I said, "which was prescribed to be presented on behalf of those purified from leprosy, was a type of the bread of the Eucharist, the celebration of which our Lord Jesus Christ prescribed, in remembrance of the suffering which He endured on behalf of those who are purified in soul from all iniquity, in order that we may at the same time thank God for having created the world, with all things therein, for the sake of man, and for delivering us from the evil in which we were, and for utterly overthrowing principalities and powers by Him who suffered according to His will. Hence God speaks by the mouth of Malachi, one of the twelve [prophets], as I said before, about the sacrifices at that time presented by you: 'I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord; and I will not accept your sacrifices at your hands: for, from the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, My name has been glorified among the Gentiles, and in every place incense is offered to My name, and a pure offering: for My name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord: but ye profane it.' [So] He then speaks of those Gentiles, namely us, who in every place offer sacrifices to Him, i.e., the bread of the Eucharist, and also the cup of the Eucharist, affirming both that we glorify His name, and that you profane [it]. The command of circumcision, again, bidding [them] always circumcise the children on the eighth day, was a type of the true circumcision, by which we are circumcised from deceit and iniquity through Him who rose from the dead on the first day after the Sabbath, [namely through] our Lord Jesus Christ. For the first day after the Sabbath, remaining the first of all the days, is called, however, the eighth, according to the number of all the days of the cycle, and [yet] remains the first.

Purity of heart constitutes prayer more than do all the prayers that are uttered out loud, and silence united to a mind that is sincere is better than a loud voice of someone crying out. My beloved, give me now your heart and your thought, and hear about the power of pure prayer; see how our righteous ancestors excelled in their prayer before God and how it served them as a "pure offering." For it was through prayer that offerings were accepted, and it was prayer again that averted the flood from Noah. Prayer has healed barrenness, prayer has overthrown armies, prayer has revealed mysteries, prayer has divided the sea, prayer made a passage through the Jordan. It held back the sun, it made the moon stand still, it destroyed the unclean, it caused fire to descend. Prayer closed up the heaven, prayer raised up from the pit, rescued from the fire and saved from the sea.

He has in several ways changed the baptism ritual of the priesthood and the divine service, which was confined to one place, for instead of daily baptisms he has given only one, which is that into his death. Instead of one tribe, he has pointed out that out of every nation the best should be ordained for the priesthood; and that rather than their bodies, their religion and their lives should be examined for blemishes. Instead of a bloody sacrifice, he has appointed that reasonable and unbloody mystical one of his body and blood, which is performed to represent the death of the Lord by symbols. Instead of the divine service confined to one place, he has commanded and appointed that he should be glorified from sun rising to sun setting in every place of his dominion.

Whether betrayers of the divine books ordained Caecilian, I do not know; I did not see; I heard it from his enemies; it's not declared to me by the law of God, or by the preaching of the prophets, or by the holy psalms, or by the apostles of Christ or by Christ's words. But the testimonies of the entire Scripture proclaim with one voice that the church, with which the sect of Donatus is not in communion, is indeed spread throughout the entire world. "In your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," said the law of God. "From the rising of the sun even to the going down, there is offered to my name a clean offering, for my name is great among the Gentiles," said God through the prophet.

You have all just now been born again of water and the spirit, and can see that food and drink upon this table of the Lord in a new light, and receive it with a fresh love and piety. So I am obliged by the duty I have of giving you a sermon and by the anxious care by which I have given you birth, that Christ might be formed in you, to remind you infants of what the meaning is of such a great and divine sacrament, such a splendid and noble medicine, such a pure and simple sacrifice, which is not offered now just in the one earthly city of Jerusalem, nor into that tabernacle which was constructed by Moses, nor in the temple built by Solomon. These were just "shadows of things to come." But "from the rising of the sun to its setting," it is offered as the prophets foretold, and as a sacrifice of praise to God, according to the grace of the New Testament. No longer is a victim sought from the flocks for a blood sacrifice, nor is a sheep or a goat any more led to the divine altars, but now the sacrifice of our time is the body and blood of the priest himself. About him, indeed, it was foretold so long ago in the psalms, "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." That Melchizedek, priest of God the most high, offered bread and wine when he blessed our father Abraham, we gather from reading about it in the book of Genesis.

To him it was said, "You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek." For you seek a sacrifice among the Jews; you have none after the order of Aaron. You seek it after the order of Melchizedek, though finding it not among them; but through the whole world it is celebrated in the church: "From the rising of the sun to the setting thereof the name of the Lord is praised." "And they sowed fields and planted vineyards and got fruit of corn," at which that workman rejoiced who said, "not because I desire a gift, but I seek fruit." "And he blessed them, and they were multiplied exceedingly, and their cattle were not diminished." This stands. For "the foundation of God stands sure, because the Lord knows them that are his." They are called "beasts of burden" and "cattle" that walk simply in the church yet are useful; not deeply learned but full of faith. Therefore, whether spiritual or carnal, "he blessed them."

For, from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name is great among the nations; and in every place incense is offered unto my name and a pure offering, for my name is great among the nations, saith the Lord Almighty.

But every Lord's day do ye gather yourselves together, and break bread, and give thanksgiving after having confessed your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure. But let no one that is at variance with his fellow come together with you, until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that which was spoken by the Lord: In every place and time offer to me a pure sacrifice; for I am a great King, saith the Lord, and my name is wonderful among the nations.

And in addition to what has been said, it is good with our head cleansed, as the head which is the workshop of the senses is cleansed, to hold fast the head of Christ, from which the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted, and to cast down our sin that exalted itself, when it would exalt us above our better part. It is good also for the shoulder to be sanctified and purified that it may be able to take up the cross of Christ, which not everyone can easily do. It is good for the hands to be consecrated, and the feet. [One is consecrated] that they may in every place be lifted up holy and that they may lay hold of the discipline of Christ, lest the Lord at any time be angered; and that the word may gain credence by action, as was the case with that which was given in the hand of a prophet. The other [is consecrated] that they be not too swift to shed blood or to run to evil, but that they be prompt to run to the gospel and the prize of the high calling and to receive Christ who washes and cleanses them. And it would be good if there is also a cleansing of that belly which receives and digests the food of the word. Do not make it a god by luxury and the meat that perishes. Rather, give it all possible cleansing and make it more spare, that it may receive the Word of God at the very heart and grieve honorably over the sins of Israel. I find also the heart and inward parts deemed worthy of honor. David convinces me of this when he prays that a clean heart may be created in him and a right spirit renewed in his inward parts, meaning, I think, the mind and its movements or thoughts.

I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept a gift from your hand.

For from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place sacrifice is made, and a clean oblation is offered to my name, because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. And you have polluted it, in that you say: The table of the Lord is defiled, and what is placed upon it is contemptible, with the fire that devours it. And you have said: Behold, from toil, and you have blown upon it, says the Lord of hosts. And you have brought in from plunder the lame and the sick, and you have brought in a gift. Shall I accept it from your hand? says the Lord. LXX: My will is not in you, says the Lord Almighty, and I will not accept sacrifice from your hands, because from the rising of the sun even to its setting my name is glorious among the nations; and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a clean sacrifice, because my name is great among the nations, says the Lord Almighty. But you have defiled it, in that you say, the table of the Lord is polluted, and its foods that are placed upon it are despised, and you have said, behold, they are from affliction, and you have blown upon them, says the Lord Almighty. And you brought in plunder, and the lame and the feeble, and you offered sacrifice: shall I accept them from your hands, says the Lord Almighty? It is a rule of the Scriptures: where a most manifest prophecy of things to come is being woven, not to weaken what is written through the uncertainties of allegory. Therefore the word of the Lord is now addressed in its proper sense to the priests of the Jews, who offer the blind and the lame and the sick for sacrifice, so that they may know that spiritual victims will succeed carnal victims; and that it is by no means the blood of bulls and goats, but incense, that is, the prayers of the saints, that is to be offered to the Lord; and that not in one province of the world, Judea, nor in one city of Judea, Jerusalem, but in every place an oblation is offered, by no means unclean, as by the people of Israel, but clean, as in the ceremonies of the Christians. For from the rising of the sun even to its setting the name of the Lord is great among the nations, as the Savior says: Father, I have manifested your name to men.

Some think that this, which is said specifically to the Jews, because their victims are unclean and polluted and the sacrifice is transferred to the nations, ought to be understood of the priests of the church, who offer victims to the Lord negligently. But if we accept this, then the victims must again be transferred from the Church to another religion. And as the gospel succeeded the law, so in turn things that will never be will succeed the gospel. They also refer the defiled table of the Lord to the holy Scriptures, if they are understood otherwise than as they were written.

It was with bread and wine that Melchizedek, the priest of the most high God, received Abraham, when he was returning from the slaughter of the alien tribes. That altar prefigured this mystical altar, even as that priest was a type and a figure of the true archpriest, who is Christ. For "you," he says, "are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." This bread was prefigured by the loaves of proposition. This is quite plainly the pure and unbloody sacrifice which the Lord, through the mouth of the prophet, said was to be offered to him from the rising of the sun even to its going down.

And it is a marvel that even among us Moses is called Moses, and each of the prophets is addressed by his own name. For Christ did not change the names in them, but the understanding. And he changes it in this respect, that we should no longer attend to "Jewish fables" and "endless genealogies," because these indeed turn the hearing away from the truth, and are turned aside to fables. He opens the wells, then, and taught us that we should not seek God in any particular place, but should know that "in every land sacrifice is offered to his name." For now is that time "when the true worshipers worship the Father" neither in Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim, but "in spirit and in truth." Not, then, in a place nor in a land does God dwell, but he dwells in the heart. And if you seek the place of God, a clean heart is his place. For in this place he says he will dwell, when he says through the prophet: "I will dwell in them and walk among them; and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, says the Lord."

And although my name, he says, is going to be great among the nations, you, O leaders of the Jews, have polluted it and are polluting it. For he so weaves the prophecy of things to come as not to abandon the present time. And it is for this reason, O priests and leaders of the Jews, that in every place a clean oblation is offered to me, and my name is great among the nations: because you say the table of the Lord is defiled; and what is placed upon it is contemptible, with the fire that devours it. The people, having returned from Babylon, built, according to the book of Ezra, only an altar of chance and unhewn stones, without a temple, without the buildings of the city, without the building of the walls; and they thought the worship of religion was the less, because the adornment of the temple was lacking. To them the Lord says: You think the altar polluted, and the whole burnt offerings and victims that are placed upon it; and that the fire too which devours the victims is polluted. Nor do you understand that almighty God seeks not gold and gems and a multitude of sacrificial victims, but the will of those who offer. But as for those who judge that not the altar but the table on which the loaves were placed ought to be understood, how they can interpret what follows, with the fire that devours it, I do not see at all; for fire does not devour the showbread, which they always exchanged, new for old, and which, when taken away, went to the use of the priests. Or at any rate it is to be understood thus: You have polluted my name in that you say: What does it profit if we offer the best? Whatever the things offered may be, they are to be devoured by fire. Now the fruit of the altar is fire, and the food of the fire is the sacrificial victims or the whole burnt offerings.

Nor is the impiety of your former speech enough, but you have also said this: Behold, from toil, and you have blown upon it, says the Lord of hosts. The sense of this speech is this: You have said: We have returned from captivity, we have been a prey to enemies, we have toiled much on a long journey, we are poor, whatever we were able to have has been consumed by the toil of the road, we offer such things as we have; and by saying these things you have blown upon your sacrifices, that is, you have made them worthy of my blowing upon them. Or, as can be read in the Hebrew: And you have blown upon me by saying these things: you have done injury not to the sacrifice but to me, to whom you were sacrificing. Wherefore I will by no means accept it from your hand, says the Lord Almighty.

We can take the cursed and deceitful one to be the people of the Jews, who, though they had a male in their flock, the Lord Savior, the spotless lamb who takes away the sins of the world, and though admonished by the prophecy of all the prophets to sacrifice and receive the ram that was caught by its horns in the thicket Sabec, would not do this, but sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord, crucifying the Savior and choosing Barabbas, the author of robbery and sedition, who according to the mystical senses is referred to the devil; and while they despise him and prefer the devil to the Savior, the name of Christ is dreadful among the nations, which have received the passion of the Lord and venerate him with awe-struck honor. It can also be said of us: if, created wise by God and having a nature suited to sacred disciplines, we neglect our talent and give ourselves up to vices and luxury, and, having a male, sacrifice a feeble one to the Lord. Now our prayer is feeble and blemished when it is corrupted by anger, envy, enmities, and other disturbance of the mind; if, offering a gift at the altar and remembering that our brother has something against us, we do not first go and make satisfaction to him. Hence the Apostle too commands: I will therefore that you pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger and disputing. And the shepherd of our thoughts and virtues is the understanding, of which it is said in Psalm 102 (103): Bless the Lord, my soul, and all that is within me, his holy name. If it rules its flock well, that blessing is fulfilled in it: Blessed the herds of your oxen, and the flocks of your sheep. But if, having by nature a male, that is, what is strong, firm and robust, it sacrifices what is light, or through excessive softness effeminate and wanton, or feeble and corrupted by various disturbances of the soul, it will feel fulfilled in itself what is written: The mighty shall mightily suffer torments, and: To whom they have given more, of him they will demand more.

Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and making a vow sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord. For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the nations. And now this commandment is for you, O priests: If you will not hear, and if you will not set it upon the heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, I will send want upon you, and I will curse your blessings, and I will curse them, since you have not set it upon the heart. LXX: And cursed is he who was powerful, and had a male in his flock, and his vow was upon it, and sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord, because I am a great king, says the Lord Almighty, and my name is illustrious among the nations. And now this commandment is for you, O priests: If you do not hear, and if you do not set it in your heart, to give glory to my name, says the Lord Almighty, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing, and I will curse it, and I will scatter your blessing, and it shall not be in you, because you do not set it in your heart. What is written: And I will scatter your blessing, was added by the LXX, and is not found in the Hebrew. Whatever the human mind can find in excuse of its sin, to defend itself with a false satisfaction, the divine word foresees, and rebukes and condemns. And the sense is: Because you offer the blind and the lame and the sick, and this very thing not from what is yours, but from plunder and spoils and the tears of the wretched, and moreover you say, from our toil and poverty we offer what we have, therefore I speak in general terms, so that your own conscience may convict you. Certainly you plead poverty and the injury of captivity and the slenderness of your household means; hear what I add: Cursed is the deceitful man who has a male in his flock, and making a vow sacrifices a feeble one to the Lord. If you do not have a male, the curse does you no harm. Now by saying these things he shows that they have what is best, and offer what is bad. To you, therefore, O priests, this commandment is given: you have done what is impious, in contempt of me. But because I prefer the repentance of the sinner to his death, even now I say: If you will not hear me, nor understand, so as to give glory to my name, which is dreadful among the nations, I will send real penury upon you, so that, by no means lying, but forced by want of all things, you may say that you do not have the best things to offer. And I will curse, he says, your blessings, that is, the things which you now possess by my blessings; or else, whatever is blessed by you will be cursed by me. And I will curse them: your blessings is understood, since you would not understand what is said; for this is what is said: You have not set it upon the heart.